


Swansong

by Olynna



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Action, Adventure, Also Kuroken tbh, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Although the endgame is BAKK there's a fair amount of BoKuroo first, Badass EVERYONE, Heavy Angst, Highly unsympathetic military organisation, Hints of Dystopia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Military AU of a sort, Okay maybe more than just hints, Past Child Abuse, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rating May Change, Recovery, Sexual Content (Eventually), Slow Burn, all the cameos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-09 08:54:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 38,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13478010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Olynna/pseuds/Olynna
Summary: When Bokuto and Kuroo unexpectedly find a scrawny, silent kidnapping victim on their first mission together, they expect to simply hand him over to the authorities and move on.Instead, that night becomes the catalyst for a life-changing series of events - ones which threaten to destroy everything they have ever known and worked for. And yet, as society crumbles around them, that cruel twist of fate might just be what keeps them alive.Perceptive. Reflective. Unstoppable. Untouchable.Together, they will beinvincible.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As seems to be a pattern for me with my writing, this story leads with the heaviest content and gets lighter after that. At present, I am hoping to update once a week, working with a current buffer of 5 chapters. 
> 
> CONTENT WARNING: This chapter contains a brief reference to sexual assault of a minor. Aside from this there will be **no** non-con in this story.

Keiji is eight when his powers awaken. They are rare enough—the simple fact he has powers  _ plural  _ is rare enough—that his parents advise him to keep them hidden, at least until he is grown. It is no life for a child, being the centre of so much fuss and attention, and he would do better to master them first, in any case. 

But Keiji is eight, and mastering his powers is not easy, especially when he is at school all day and is told he can only use them at home. He musters up the courage one afternoon, and confides the nature of  _ one  _ of his powers in his classroom teacher. Having one power isn’t quite so unusual as two at least, and he always thinks of it as the more mediocre of the two, so he supposes it can’t be so bad. His teacher is delighted, and promises to help Keiji gain better control of his abilities between lessons.

Keiji is still eight years old when they come for him; when he learns the hardest way of all why his parents wanted him to slip through childhood without notice. 

 

* * *

 

Keiji is given thin clothes and no shoes or even slippers, and set to work in a strange, large house with lots of people. They are all adults, and shout a lot, and some of them have the most terrifying powers he has ever seen. He learns a lot from them though; lessons like how to keep quiet, and how to hold a tray even when someone kicks out at you, and how to remember faces without making it look like you have looked at the other person at all. 

His teacher was right about one thing, though. He  _ does  _ learn to control his powers. Before long, the adults in the strange house all know that he can stick things—stop them moving, make barriers impenetrable, or freeze objects in place by touching or holding them. They don’t seem to know about his other power, which he hides deep inside himself, but it’s the lessons in his first power which help him do that in the first place. 

The new teachers are cruel. Keiji hates them with a bitter desperation; hates them as much as he misses his parents and his home, and his friends and his toys, and all the other trappings of the normal life he no longer has. Their lessons are accompanied by loud voices and harsh punishments for any mistakes. The bruises which litter his arms and legs begin to seem permanent.

He wishes bitterly that he had never said anything to his teacher. Wishes he could take back those words, which cannot be unsaid.

 

* * *

 

Keiji is nine when he speaks for the last time. 

There is a master at the large house, and when he comes home from what must have been a very long holiday, Keiji is brought to see him. The master sits in a large chair, tall and broad and brooding, and when he asks for a demonstration of Keiji’s power, Keiji thinks for a moment that if he is good enough, perhaps they’ll let him go home. 

They do not. 

He does his best with proving himself at first, small demonstrations of his power such as making a sheet of paper hard as steel, or holding heavy weights in place against the wall and walking away, leaving them stuck in place for long minutes before they finally come loose. But when the master calls for a large dog on a chain, telling Keiji that if he’s really good then he’ll be able to stop it before it bites him, Keiji quails. He quails and he panics, and when the dog lunges forward he is too slow and screams with pain before they pull it off of him, snarling and growling, fangs dripping with Keiji’s blood. 

The master of the big house spits on the floor beside Keiji, and speaks to the angry man who teaches him most often rather than to Keiji himself. But Keiji is not deaf, and he is not stupid, and even as he lies bleeding and crying he knows he needs to learn to protect himself even more now, because no one else will. 

 

* * *

 

Keiji’s lessons are accompanied more and more by pain. The adults seem to  _ enjoy  _ the sound of his crying; grinning at him as he whimpers each time they beat him, or grab him so tightly that his wrists and arms are ringed with bruises. He doesn’t understand why they do it at first, why they keep hurting him when he is  _ trying _ , he’s trying so hard to make his power work. 

But Keiji is clever, and Keiji listens, and slowly he starts to put together an explanation in his mind. 

These adults are not like his parents, or his aunts and uncles, or the parents of friends whose faces he can’t quite remember properly any more. They don’t want him to succeed—they want him to fail, want to stop him from sticking things in place, and distract him from protecting himself against their blows. They report each failure to the master of the house with vicious glee, watching as the stern man’s face sets into a deeper scowl than his usual one, and the cane is brought out to teach Keiji lessons a harder way.

Keiji can’t stop the cane. It’s too fast, and the pain too deep, and focusing his power past it is too hard. So he cries out, and the faces around him light up each time, and Keiji remembers just enough from his lessons at home and at school to know that there is  _ something  _ he can do, perhaps. Something which might get them to stop beating him just to hear him plead that they stop.

 

* * *

 

Keiji is ten years old before he learns to silence his voice completely. With his power trained inward he can stop the sounds coming out, stick the voice inside him where no one can hear it. He can’t remember the colour of the floor in his old bedroom anymore, but he remembers the diagram of a human head, with the little flaps called vocal chords which shake to make the sounds. 

The master is gone again, although no one tells Keiji where, or why. Without that cane, and the hound to scare him, he has the focus he needs to keep his power going all the time, day and night, until he can hold it there without really thinking about it.

He is still beaten, but there are no more smiles. For a while his punishments are worse, and he’s sure now that all the adults around him are cruel, cruel people who only find fun in pain and suffering. But although they are very angry at him for his stubborn silence, eventually they get bored, just like he hoped and wished for. 

No one cares about a silent boy in this loud, loud place.

 

* * *

 

Keiji is twelve when he realises he is as tall as some of the grown men in the house. They seem to realise it too, watching him curiously, or risking his power to grab hold of his face and turn it this way or that. He lets them, mostly, knowing by now that to flaunt his power needlessly only costs him hunger later, or beatings, with stones thrown at him if they fear that he will stick their canes or hands. 

He feels strange, standing with his eyes level to theirs, close enough that he can see the greed which haunts their souls as they look him over. It’s wrong and cruel in a different way to the beatings, and its consequence makes itself known later at night, when his fear gets the better of him again, and he turns his power against those who would attack him on the thin mattress where he spends his nights. 

He is beaten for his transgressions, and he is deprived of food, but Keiji is stubborn and he has had beatings before, and pain outside his body is infinitely preferable to a pain and wrongness which lingers deep inside.

They learn, and Keiji learns, and no matter how tall his body grows, he teaches himself to shrink as well, silent and hunched and soon this is another torment which passes, and he is left to himself until the master comes home once more.

 

* * *

 

Keiji is thirteen when he fends off the master’s dogs—there are three of them now, three sets of wide jaws which close in upon him until he sticks their feet in place and stops them before they can close their jaws around his arms and leg, and the master is so pleased that he forgives Keiji for all the times he stopped the other men from harming him, in the halls and in his room at night.

Keiji is even given a  _ new  _ room, and new clothes that fit him better than the ones which have been straining at the seams for some time now, and is told to clean himself up because he has become a  _ working man _ . 

The greed in the master’s eyes as he says this is not so different to that of the others, in many ways. But Keiji just nods and does as he is told, relishing the feel of warm water on his skin and fresh cotton to dress in, until he realises what his work is to be.

 

* * *

 

Keiji is thirteen when he is sent to his first job. There are many more than three dogs which patrol the building the men take Keiji to, and it’s the first time he’s been outside in years so is it any surprise that he gets lost in the stars and the sound of the wind in the trees and is too slow to stop the last dog from sinking its jaws into the thigh of one of the men, and alerting the guards that they are there? 

But he can’t tell anyone this, just as he can’t stop the bullets from hurting anyone but himself, and when the men drag Keiji back to the house, bruised but intact, they leave more than one man behind on the grass, bleeding into the darkness with screams Keiji has forgotten how to make. 

It is the first and last time that Keiji is taken out to work, and he is returned to his old room, with the thin mattress and no windows, and the door is locked for days and days before someone comes with food and water, and a promise that the master is very, very angry. 

Keiji learns that night that his power is no longer useful to the master. Learns the master is looking for more  _ reliable  _ workers, and that Keiji is very lucky that he will be allowed to live after what he has done.

No one says that it is because they can’t quite be sure that they  _ can  _ kill him, but by now Keiji has learnt to understand the meanings behind they do not say, as all silent people do, and he carries this knowledge deep in his heart. A solid certainty, to comfort him when all else fails.

 

* * *

 

Keiji’s new role in the house is that of a servant, tasked with fetching and carrying and doing all the things no one else wants to do. He is told that he will go outside no longer, as punishment for allowing the other men to die while he lived, and that although he cannot always be physically harmed, perhaps, he is perfectly capable of starving to death if he displeases the master any more. He knows better than to try and stop the cuff to the head the master gives him as he is dismissed to his new duties. 

But having had his taste of freedom, he misses the outside. Enough that sometimes he lingers by the barred windows of the lower floors where he is permitted, staring up at the patches of sky visible between the walls of the house and its outbuildings. He learns to slip silently through the rooms at night, the better to see the stars when the men are falling into an alcoholic stupor.

Keiji is fourteen when he makes his first escape attempt, and fifteen when he makes his last; when they take to shackling him to the floor any time he is not fetching and carrying.    
  
It’s when they start restricting his movement that the men realise that he cannot stick them in place if they do not touch his skin; then that they find cuffs with wide loops for his wrists and neck to ensure they can drag him back to his room if he acts out of turn. The master of the house is on one of his many trips away when it starts, but upon his return he simply tells Keiji to get used to it. Tells him that he is sick of such a useless burden on the house being uncontrollable, and that this way at least there will be no more attempts to flee.   
  
And Keiji could always  _ ask  _ for things to be different, the master reminds him. At any time, if he is willing to work  _ properly _ , he could simply tell them and they would be glad to make real use of his power. The men around the master laugh as Keiji stands there, silent as always, letting only a few of the things they throw at him leave marks upon his skin.    
  
By now, he knows better than to think his power will ever bring him freedom, or anything other than considerably fewer bruises than the men of the house would like him to have. He knows better than to expect anything more than the same drudgery forever; fetching and carrying, always indoors.   
  
But Keiji has always been strong, and always been clever, and he keeps hold of the things he hears, and the things he knows; cold, desperate anger fueling him with the certainty that on some level they are  _ afraid _ . He has heard enough, now, to be sure that they chain him because they dare not let him loose. There is power in that knowledge, somehow, if he can only make use of it. If only, somehow, he can get  _ out. _

 

* * *

 

Keiji is nineteen years old when the walls of the house come crashing down around him, and bury him alone in the rubble of his room.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Koutarou has never really been one for subtlety, so when he’s given the details for the first mission he will head up in the field, he deliberately ignores the part which informs him that discretion will be necessary due to the reports of a large number of armed yakuza thugs living there.

He’s twenty years old and he’s already made it to a position of command; there’s nothing he can’t handle if he focuses on the task in front of him. And this particular task is even more straightforward than most. From all that anyone can tell—even the best intelligence gatherers at Command—there’s no one inside the building but fully-blooded thugs, an inner circle whose loyalty to their house will endure until their dying breaths.

It’s a fact which means two things:

Firstly, and most importantly, that there’s a strong chance something really sinister is being planned or built by the head of this particular house, seeing as he won’t even trust staff who have been _blackmailed_ into loyalty to go inside and see whatever it is. When the clearance is for the top few tiers alone, it’s got to be serious.

Secondly, if there are no staff inside to worry about, and he’s been given a pass to take down as many thugs as he can so long as he gets Command their guy, he doesn’t have to hold back for once.

Koutarou is seriously bored of holding back.

He’s been strong since childhood, his power bursting forth before his ninth birthday, and all but guaranteeing him a place among the highest ranks when he was old enough. Raw strength like his is hard to come by, and no one was going to pass it up, even if it came in the form of a highly enthusiastic child with a tendency to get carried away at times.

They trained most of the impulsiveness out of him, of course, because if he’s learnt one thing about peacekeeping it’s that it’s kinda hard to do when you’re scaring the people you’re meant to protect. But that’s what makes this mission so perfect—there’s no one to protect, no one to save. Just the bad guys everywhere around him, and all he has to do is take them out.

 

* * *

 

Koutarou waits for the cover of darkness, because he might be loud and brash and “excessively cheerful”—whatever _that_ means—but he’s not stupid, and if he’s going to be ignoring the instruction about being discreet when he takes down a mob boss, he sure as anything isn’t going to march up to a house full of gun-toting loyalist bodyguards in broad daylight.

He even follows the boring instructions about going round the back and sneaking across the grounds where the house is closest to the compound wall, because fair play, those are pretty sensible. Kenma’s not the youngest strategist they’ve had in fifty years without a reason.

But Kenma’s all about taking time to read the situation and relying on coordination, and when you get right down to it, there’s not a lot of need for either of those things when your arms pack enough raw power to take out an entire wall with one hit.

Kuroo’s in his ear hissing protests even before the bullets start flying, but it’s not like Koutarou didn’t _tell_ everyone what he was going to do. And he’s got more important things to think about now, like the ten to twelve burly men advancing on him all at once, and the fact that wow, their bullets are _really_ ripping through the large stone sculpture Koutarou pinched from the garden for himself as a bit of shelter.

It’s fine though, because the thing about having a whole lot of strength is that it makes it pretty easy to pick up a crossbeam and hurl it across the room, and that instantly takes out three of them, and if Kuroo would just stop _buzzing_ already, he’d see that this is all totally according to plan, because when he said he’d be providing a distraction he actually kinda meant it, and if Kuroo could just set off the explosives like _he_ was meant to, that’d be great, thanks.

What he actually says out loud is a rather less long-winded: “Do it _now_ , you lanky bastard!” but Kuroo knows him well enough that it covers the same basic points.

 

* * *

 

The explosion rips through the other half of the building a few seconds later, accompanied by Tsukishima’s curses through his earpiece that they’ve just made the whole site almost impossible for Comms to follow. But Koutarou isn’t paying all that much attention to Tsukishima, because he’s busy taking advantage of the thugs’ momentary distraction to _really_ go to town on them. The two stood closest to him go down with his first leap into the room: their bodies crumple beneath him as he lands. Koutarou doesn’t stop to check if they’ll be up again later. They won’t.

There are a lot of guns, but their owners clearly weren’t expecting any of this to go down tonight, because half the thugs are drunk, and their aim is worse than terrible. Really, Koutarou can’t understand why it’s taken Command so long to raid this place, because he was honestly expecting a lot more of them too. None of them activate powers worth a damn until he’s ploughed through two thirds of their companions, and even then, he’s got full suit of government issue body-armour on with infrared sensors built into the visor, so did anyone really think that _invisibility_ was going to be a lot of help?

Despite Kuroo’s constant sarcastic remarks about how this is all totally just an ego-trip or something, and Tsukishima’s occasional reply that no one actually _cares_ so long as they don’t lose their target in the chaos, everything is going totally according to plan. With no blueprints to follow there’s nothing for it but to assume the multi-storey compound shares the same basic layout as most old buildings, and that their guy will be on the upper floors. Tsukishima’s watching from above to make sure he doesn’t leap out of a window or anything, so with the initial round of bodyguards taken out, Koutarou crosses his arms above his head to shield himself from the impact and jumps—straight up through the ceiling to the next floor.

There are more guards here, half of them taken totally by surprise by the large man who just appeared in their midst, and despite the somewhat more capable fighters among them, none can match Koutarou’s strength. He ploughs through them, years of combat training paying off as he dodges blows and picks off the one reaching for a semi-automatic something—the light’s too low to make out details—before he can actually shoot him. The floor creaks ominously beneath him as he stalks out into the hallway, but that’s fine. The building only has to stand for long enough to get the ringleader, alive or dead, and it’ll be a very pointed message to these guys to leave a smoking ruin in his wake.

 

* * *

 

They get their guy up on the second floor, surrounded by the real talent. There are dogs up here too, three big ones which Koutarou leaves to Kuroo to handle while he pushes his way through the expected powers of the rest. Right on schedule he gets a wave of nausea from Right Hand Man Number One, and mentally thanks Kenma back at base for the anti-emetic he took before deployment. It’s always nice when Intel pays off like that.

The whirring blades of Right Hand Man Number Two are more tricky, but he’s been squaring off against Command’s best swordsmen for two years now, and it’s enough to get him through the fight in one piece. Especially when Mr Samurai stands on the same floorboard as Koutarou and falls prey to the basic principles of leverage. Just because he has a lot of strength doesn’t mean he can’t reign it in a little when the moment calls for it.

The boss himself is a tougher job, even with Kuroo handling his hounds. They’ve been warned about him—his power makes him fast and lethal; physically slow enough that Koutarou can catch him as he flees, but with a mental sharpness which has him turning in mid-air as Koutarou leaps, dagger already outstretched as he reaches the doorway. It’s sheer dumb luck that the blade slices through the outer layer of his body armour and lodges on the titanium buckle underneath, right in the tender place below Koutarou’s collarbone. It’s also enough to make Koutarou take no more chances.

Command said he was to be taken in alive or dead. Having read the report on this guy, Koutarou really doesn’t think anyone will mind the latter.

 

* * *

 

It’s all over in less than half an hour. A few of the thugs on the ground floor flee the building into the waiting arms of the unpowered peacekeepers stationed around the perimeter, and then all that’s left is to check what remains of the building for stragglers. That and whatever it is they’ve been keeping this place so tightly nailed down for this whole time.

The upper floors are already collapsing in some places, and there’s a whole wing which was more or less levelled by Kuroo’s explosives, but the building has a lot of stonework in the lower floors for something this old, and there are steps down to a series of cellars which prove that the traditional exterior has been hiding some serious secrets for a long time. Probably since before they started really keeping an eye on it.

Kuroo whistles loudly as they descend into the cellars, where bright strip-lights have kept going despite the carnage in the house proper.

“Oh they’re definitely keeping something down here,” he says, which is sort of redundant because it’s less than a minute later that they stumble on the narcotics production centre built in the cellar complex. It comes complete with one or two more armed guards, who have been bracing for their arrival having heard the chaos above.

Once again it’s infrared to the rescue, because they see the welcome party through the walls. It’d be easy enough for Koutarou to just punch straight through, but with all the drugs everywhere Koutarou can’t let rip as much as he’d sort of like. The haul needs to be intact so they can hand it over to Command for analysis and ‘official destruction’, but Koutarou would destroy it as he went if he could. This shit _kills_ people. The thought of it getting onto the market—the thought of how much must _already_ have gotten onto the market—is enough to churn his stomach a little, anti-emetics or not.

“I’ll take stock,” Kuroo says when the fight’s over, because they’ve trained together for long enough that he can read Koutarou pretty much like a book, and it might be Koutarou’s mission but Kuroo only missed out on the position of command by a few hairs. “You can do the last sweep upstairs, alright?”

Koutarou pats him on the shoulder hard enough that Kuroo winces and tells him to fuck off already, but he doesn’t mean it. It’s been a pretty productive evening, all told, so they’re both in high spirits.

Then the infrared scanner which Koutarou’s been running to check for any more would-be ninjas picks up the faint shape of a body beneath the rubble of a collapsed wing on the ground floor, and his good mood more or less evaporates. The foetal position it’s lying in doesn’t look _anything_ like a thug who went down fighting.

 

* * *

 

Koutarou is a strong person, so tearing the rubble apart to get to the small, hunched figure in the ruins is not a difficult task. The somewhat faint outline visible through the infrared filter is still moving, so he can see that they’re still alive, and pending their being a _really_ good yakuza actor or something he’d like to keep it that way, thanks all the same.

He only let loose because he thought no one was here! No one was _meant_ to be here! They’ve got to be crooked, right? Just waiting for the perfect moment to strike?

Kuroo is muttering reassurances in his ear after just a minute or two, which means his initial cursing must have been broadcast for everyone to hear. Now everyone knows he screwed up, and that’s pretty much the worst—but not quite because if it turns out there really was an innocent person here and he just killed them that _will_ be the worst.

He’s forced to stop when he reaches a section of wall which must have been the first thing to collapse on top of the person. It won’t budge when he tugs at it, and he’s wary of using his full strength in case something else collapses on top of the person inside. It must have fallen on top of an object which stopped it falling though, because when he kneels down to try and get a better grip on it he sees a dark, empty space underneath.

“Hey!” he calls, patting the floor gently so as not to set off any more collapses. “Whoever you are in there, come out. I can see you moving around. There’s room to get through.”

No one answers, and the figure underneath goes motionless. Koutarou strains to make out any sounds, tucked off just to one side of the opening because it _could_ just be a trick caused by one last thug with powers. Finally he can stand the suspense no longer, and risks peering into the small space.

The light mounted onto his visor shines into the cavity, and picks out the shape of long, slender arms and legs. It takes him a few seconds to realise it’s a boy—or a young man, maybe, although he’s so skinny and hunched up it’s impossible to get a read on how old he actually is. The reason he hasn’t followed Koutarou’s instruction and come out becomes obvious enough straight away: he’s been chained to the floor.

Koutarou swears loudly enough that Tsukishima is still lecturing him even when Kuroo arrives to help. The person huddled in the ruins looks up and stares out at him, not making a single sound.


	3. Chapter 3

Tetsurou arrives at the site of the apparent survivor and can _immediately_ tell that Bokuto has cracked under the pressure. He’s lying on the freaking ground, arm stretched out into a hole he has no hope of getting inside, and he’s taken his helmet off so no one can hear what he’s muttering. To make matters worse it means no one at Command can get through _to_ him, either.

“What the hell are you _doing?_ ” Tetsurou asks, although he makes sure his headset isn’t transmitting what he’s saying first. Bokuto’s going to get enough of a dressing down over this as it is, without him adding to the pile.

Bokuto looks up then and his expression is _stricken_ , tears rolling down his cheeks. Tetsurou can’t remember the last time he saw Bokuto look so devastated.

“They’ve got him chained up like an _animal_ ,” he moans, and oh _shit_ . That’s what this is about? “Kuroo, he can’t get out! And I can’t get in there without bringing the rest of it down, and this is _all_ my fault; I can’t ever do another mission again!”

“No, no, you…it’s not—let me take a look at this kid,” Tetsurou says, because there’s next to no saving Bokuto from himself when he gets like this, which is exactly why he insisted on still being part of the team despite his disappointment at not being given the command. No one else knows Bokuto like he does.

Bokuto nods. “Hang on in there, we’ll get you out,” he calls into the hole before backing away, and that’s the point at which Kuroo realises that, shit, it _must_ look bad.

A lot of people make the error of taking Bokuto’s usual cheerful demeanour to mean that he’s an airhead, which is definitely not how he got to the point of commanding a raid on a yakuza safe house at the princely age of twenty years old. At his best Bokuto is one of the most focused people Kuroo has ever met. So if he’s let his guard down that much with the kid, chances are there’s a reason.

Still, despite that warning, he is absolutely not ready for what awaits him when he peers into the little pocket of space under the rubble.

 

* * *

 

Tetsurou does not have claustrophobia. But as he looks around the space beneath the crumbling brickwork, he can suddenly appreciate where a fear like that would come from. The kid hardly has room to move, with the rubble suspended above him mere centimetres from his shoulders. Dust and splinters of masonry have spilled in at the sides, around the solid chunk of wall which forms the roof of the hollow. A short length of chain runs between two actual metal shackles around the kid’s wrists, which means that when the whole thing came down he must have been sat right there. If they’d chained him up on the other side of the room he’d probably be dead. As it is, he’d have been trapped in total darkness all the while Tetusrou and Bokuto were on their mission, not knowing how long the unstable arrangement around him would hold.

In a situation like that, Tetsurou would expect anyone to be _terrified_. And there’s real enough fear in the face he can see amid a tangle of black hair, but not nearly so much as he’d expect.

The eyes of the kid—hell, he _could_ be an adult, but not by much if Tetsurou is any judge of age—stare back at him, wary and nervous but not witless. He looks more like the cornered animal they seem to have been treating him as than the survivor of an explosion and, well, shit. That’s exactly what’s gotten Bokuto so worked up then. You don’t get in a state like that overnight, and now they’ve come along and traumatised the kid even more. Some fucking heroes _they_ are.

The gap between the wall and the floor isn’t huge, but although he’s far from scrawny, Tetsurou has nothing on Bokuto’s upper body width.

“I can get in there, I think,” he says, gritting his teeth. He doesn’t _want_ to go in of course—even his body armour won’t be enough protection if the brickwork collapses on top of him—but he doesn’t really have a choice. There’s no telling how long this little safe space will hold up. “I’ll need something to cut those chains though. You see any bolt-cutters or similar around?”

Bokuto darts off to search the site for likely help, while Kuroo stays right where he is. He doesn’t have the strength to hold up the wall if it goes, but there’s no way he can leave the kid _alone_.

“We’re gonna get you out of there,” he says, heaving a sigh and tapping the button which will slide up the visor and expose his face. It’s a risk, but he hardly looks like a rescuer with the reflective surface of the mask concealing his features. “Just…sit tight. Try not to disturb this lot, okay?”

Tsukishima rattles off advice in his ear, telling him to ask the kid for his name like Tetsurou wasn’t about to do just that off his own initiative. He rolls his eyes and mutes him. It’ll probably mean a reprimand later, but that won’t be anything new.

“Voices in my ear,” he says to the kid, smiling. The trick is to wind them back down from the fear, right? “I got people telling me what to do no matter which way I turn. But they’re trying to help me I guess, so I need to listen to them. And it’s just like we’re gonna help you, but we need you to listen as well. Now. Can you tell me your name?”

 

* * *

 

By the time Bokuto gets back, carrying an assortment of implements with the excuse that _something_ in the pile ought to work, Tetsurou has mostly retreated from the hole, with just his arm reaching in there and his face turned away.

“If we hadn’t just done it already, I’d kill the lot of those bastards for what they did to him,” he mutters to Bokuto. “Let’s get him out of this hell hole already.”

He grabs a metal pole from the assortment—he’s not carrying a _sword_ into that tight space, jeez—and shimmies back in, wincing as he realises his visor is shining light directly at the face which is still turned warily towards him.

“Right, I need you to just…hold there. I’m gonna snap some of the links with this, okay?”

The chains aren’t all that long, and there’s not much room to move in the small space, especially when he’s trying to manoeuvre a long metal pole so that it fits through the links of the chain. He bumps up against the kid and that’s where things immediately go wrong.

Suddenly he can’t move. Shit, he _can’t move!_ His whole body is locked up, and it takes a full ten seconds of panicking for him to realise that no, it’s not his body, it’s his body _armour_ , because the scrawny kid flinched hard as Tetsurou brushed against him, and now he’s backing up as far as he can in the tiny space, and he really needs to not do that because the whole thing could come crashing down, and _fucking hell_ it was bad enough seeing that those bastards put some sort of collar round his neck like he was an animal, but the chain pinning him to the floor has been run through a loop on it as well as through the cuffs on his wrists, and if he weren’t panicking slightly Tetsurou would have room in his head to feel genuinely sick.

However he _is_ panicking, because he might not actually have claustrophobia but right now he’s still trapped almost entirely underneath a pile of unstable rubble with a scrawny kid who apparently has some kind of _power_ —and actually, shit, that’s probably why they chained him up like thi—

There’s an awful groaning sound and the whole section of wall lifts up and away, brick dust raining down on Tetsurou and the kid. Bokuto clambers over, having finally flung the wall somewhere. Probably halfway across the compound, knowing him. The day is saved again, or at least it will be as soon as Tetsurou can _move_.

 

* * *

 

Bokuto snaps the chains with his bare hands, because of course he does. The kid watches with wide eyes—and okay, okay, he’s too old to _actually_ be a kid, but Tetsurou likes being an adult at last and at this point anyone who looks vaguely younger than him is fair game. Still, as wide as the not-a-kid’s eyes are when he watches Bokuto do his wall of muscle thing, they’re not as wide as they get when he looks _up_.

The thin cloud cover from earlier is already shredding itself into scraps, and from the way those wide eyes drink in the stars overhead, he hasn’t seen any in a long, _long_ time. Tetsurou can feel his blood boiling in his veins again. Just how long was he chained up in that room?

The freezing in place thing lasts a while. He spends the time talking both Bokuto and the kid down from panic, because Bokuto is consumed with guilt over the whole thing, and the kid honestly looks like he’s about to bolt. And that’s a bad, _bad_ idea, because if he runs there are way too many twitchy soldiers with guns stationed around this place, and the last thing any of them need right now is a flash of sudden movement to set off their itchy trigger fingers.

“Just…just both of you sit down, okay?” Tetsurou says eventually, acutely aware of how ridiculous he has to look, giving orders while sprawled on the floor. Not least of all because he’s got Tsukishima in his ear, actually cackling down the radio thanks to the whole thing being visible from the drone flying above them. “Kid, how long will this last?”

The kid stares at him warily, backing up a little.

“I’m not angry, okay?” Tetsurou says. “We’re here to help—you’re not in trouble or anything. I just want to know.”

The only answer he gets is a slight shake of the head. Still, the kid does at least sit down, so it could probably be worse. He’s not actually a lot shorter than Bokuto by the looks of things, although he’s thin and scrawny, and his skin has the pallor of someone who definitely doesn’t get enough sunlight. But despite the haunted expression on his face, he’s sitting there right next to them, with a lot more confidence than Tetsurou would expect from someone who’s been locked up with—and more importantly _by_ —yakuza for who knows how long.

“Hey, what’s your name?” Bokuto asks and the kid flinches, backing up and retreating into himself with a gentle clinking sound as the metal loops on his cuffs knock against each other.

Tetsurou grimaces. “Can we get those damn things off him?” he asks, straining futilely against his immobile body armour.

“Oh, right!” Bokuto says. He turns to the kid with a gentle smile on his face. “Here, um…will you let me? You’re not a prisoner any more. I can get rid of them.”

The kid watches him for a long, long moment, eyes darting between the pair of them like he’s waiting for them to attack. Finally, his brows descend and he slowly holds out one arm, gingerly turning his wrist to expose the part of the cuff which opens. He purses his lips like he’s concentrating.

“Okay,” Bokuto says, moving almost as slowly as he reaches out for the lock. “I’m not gonna hurt you. I’m just…”

Bokuto stops the moment his gloved fingers brush the kid’s arm. Stops dead.

“Uhh…”

It’s been a much longer night than Tetsurou really expected when they set out for this mission. They’ve just killed a lot of people, and that does things to your brain, even when it’s justified. It’s honestly the only excuse he can give for the fact that he bursts out laughing.

“Holy shit!” he exclaims the moment he’s capable of speaking between ugly cackles. “He…he got you _too!_ ”

 

* * *

 

“I’m just saying, you could have _warned_ me!”

Bokuto is still complaining as Tetsurou finally feels the invisible hold on his armour loosen up. The poor bastard responsible for getting them stuck has backed up a bit, but he’s not gone far. He seems content to just stare at his surroundings. Tetsurou would be prepared to believe he simply doesn’t know what to do with himself at this point.

“In my defence, I figured he did it out of panic because of being trapped,” Tetsurou says, taking great relish in the fact he can actually shrug again as he speaks. “But after seeing what happened with you, I’d say it’s more likely that he can’t help it.”

“You still could have _said_ ,” Bokuto groans again, tossing his head back. “Now I look like a complete idiot!” He sighs, glancing at the figure perched awkwardly on the rubble. “What do you think Command are gonna do with that guy?”

“I don’t know,” Tetsurou replies. “That’s quite the power he’s got there though.” He folds his arms. “I just hope they don’t mess him up more than he’s got to be already, getting him sorted out.”


	4. Chapter 4

Keiji is nineteen when the walls around him tumble and fall, and he emerges out into a starry night to discover that everyone he knows is dead. 

There’s an odd detachment to it all. He hated them; hated  _ all  _ of them, his teachers and the master and the hounds and the drunks. But now he’s alone, more alone even than before. Cast into a strange world where people claim they want to  _ help  _ him even though they killed everyone he knows. Keiji understands that, at least. It means that if he makes too many mistakes they’ll probably try to kill him as well. 

He can’t answer their questions, and so far they don’t seem too angry about that. It’s unexpected, but not in a bad way. Just an unsettling one. Keiji doesn’t like uncertainty. Still, to set against that, he has the fact they found out about his power thanks to the cramped space under the rubble. 

He knows what comes next all too well. 

 

* * *

 

Keiji is taken—carefully, because the two men who found him are wary of touching him now that they know he can stick them in place—to a helicopter, and is spoken to as though he is slow or simple. He doesn’t trust any of his so-called rescuers. They are taking him to a new place where he will have to learn new rules, and where he can already tell that people will not understand him. But he is grateful too because he is  _ outside _ , and the air is fresh and cool and there are stars, and even when he is locked inside for years and years after this—and he has few doubts about his future at this point—it’s a pleasant memory he will be able to hold onto. He has precious few of those.

The helicopter rocks and shakes but that’s okay too, because he was allowed to fasten the safety harness holding him in his seat  _ himself _ ; the first of his rescuers proclaiming that  _ no one _ would be restraining him again. He sits, quiet and small in his seat as the new people talk around him and above him, and gradually forget that he can hear what they say as they return to their home. 

And Keiji listens, and learns, and by the time the helicopter has landed he is sure that he is exchanging one prison for another so he makes sure to drink in as much of the sky and the stars and the outdoors as he can, before he is guided into a building even larger than the master’s house, and a lot less friendly.

 

* * *

 

The new building—Headquarters—is not Keiji’s new home. After failing to speak to anyone there, he is sent to another place, some distance away in the back of a van. No one tries to touch him, but the second place is a rehabilitation centre, and although the word is unfamiliar to Keiji, its purpose becomes clear quickly enough. 

Because he cannot talk, and it has been so long since he wrote words that he cannot remember how, there is no way for Keiji to explain that he was  _ not  _ locked endlessly in a dark room the way they seem to believe. It’s frustrating, for both him and the staff who claim to be helping him, because although they assure him over and over that he can speak now, that it’s safe, the sounds won’t come. And once they decide that he is incapable of speech, does not understand sign language, and is incapable of writing with a pencil, they give up talking to him at all, and speak around him as they decide “what to do with him”.

Keiji huddles in the corner of the brightly-lit room they give him, and tells himself that he hadn’t hoped. He hadn’t allowed himself to believe that he would be free—whatever freedom really means. 

 

* * *

 

Still, while it isn’t freedom that he has in the rehabilitation centre, there are soft chairs which he can sit in as long as he likes. After a few false starts, Keiji is also given a set of bolt cutters and informed that it would be best if he removed the cuffs from  _ himself _ . By now he has gotten far too used to activating his power the moment someone touches him. No matter how hard he tries, he keeps sticking the people who try to remove them for him. 

There’s a real satisfaction in sliding the metal jaws into position and feeling it cut through his bonds. In slipping them off and throwing them to the ground, and running his fingers over the bare, dimpled skin underneath. 

Over and over he is told that his time as a captive is over; that he has been released. Keiji doesn’t know that he can really believe them about that, but the nature of his imprisonment seems better already. They show him to a shower, and offer better fitting clothes and a stack of soft towels for when he emerges, although the  _ way _ they make the offer implies that they aren’t sure if he knows what these things are. 

He doesn’t like or trust the people at the rehabilitation centre. They keep him at arm’s length because of his power, but don’t seem to realise that the men at the house had to do the same thing for  _ years _ . That Keiji has been doing things for himself for a long time, and is perfectly aware of how a shower works, and how to read—although his knowledge of kanji is limited to those in the small collections of classics left around the house, or from subtitles beneath the television, or on the labels of various things in the kitchen. He does not need or want the young man who tells him what the labels on the bottles in the shower room say. 

Keiji doesn’t want anyone trying to help him, in fact. He just wants to be  _ alone _ ; to try and make sense of what is going on, because everything feels a little like a dream.

A dream or a  _ nightmare _ . Part of him is starting to wonder if it would be easier if he simply woke up.

 

* * *

 

Keiji lies awake in a strange bed with the light out and an unbarred window letting starlight fall across his face, and cannot sleep because he knows it will not last. The staff at the centre left him alone in the room with promises that they would save their questions for the morning, and questions mean  _ tests _ , and he does not know what they want to test him for but it can only be his powers—that or they wish to know things he cannot find a voice to explain, and when he disappoints them he is sure they will lock him in a darker room once more. 

The last time he had a room with a window was years ago, and not for long, and losing it hurt so badly. The mattress, too, is soft beneath him and strange, and he feels lost and too hot among the blankets. All he can think of is a cold, loud night filled with gunfire, and the peppering of bullets against his skin and how they hadn’t hurt as much as his empty, cramping stomach in the long days which followed. His ears blot out the silence with the remembered anger of the master and the men, who he still cannot quite believe are dead. 

But no one comes to scold him when he slips silently from the bed, even though he can see the camera in the corner of the room, red light blinking slowly to indicate that he is being watched. No one comes when he sits on the floor by the window, or when he walks from one side of the room to the other, watching the camera out of the corner of his eye and noting that it does not follow his movements. 

No one even comes to disturb Keiji when he pulls the blanket from the bed, or clambers beneath it where the blinking red light of the security camera cannot follow. 

 

* * *

 

Dawn brings more change. He is used to waking with the sun, but the silence of the rehabilitation centre is entirely alien. Keiji watches the sunrise from the gap between the headboard of the bed and the wall. When he emerges—of his own accord—from beneath the bed, no one has come to rouse him, or scold him for being tardy.

The sun has well and truly risen before he investigates the door. The rules here are unfamiliar, but he was told that there would be questions in the morning and  _ it’s morning now _ . Above him, the red light of the camera blinks on for one second and off for two; the same pattern, staring across the main part of the room.

He grits his teeth before testing the door knob. No one can see—he noticed the night before that this corridor is not covered by security cameras. If it is locked, he will know that he is to wait longer. If it is unlocked…well he will have the choice between exploring this centre and finding the limits of his so-called freedom, or waiting in the room lest this be some sort of test of his loyalty. Most likely it is a test.

Sure enough, the door opens easily, swinging on well-oiled hinges. Keiji closes it almost immediately, not even trusting himself to lean forward and look outside. He sits against the wall opposite the door, hands wrapped around drawn-up knees, and stares at the security camera, waiting. 

 

* * *

 

Someone comes for Keiji eventually, although he is shaking long before they arrive; doubts and fears warring in his mind as to whether he has done right or wrong. He freezes as the latch clicks and the door opens, staring at the person who walks in wearing loose-fitting clothes and a white jacket—just like the doctors in the medical procedure programme some of the men in the house used to watch. The man is tall with a short fuzz of black hair, and his expression is kind. In one hand he carries a clipboard, with a bag hanging underneath it.

Keiji doesn’t trust him at  _ all _ .

“Hello there,” the man says, and after a short silence, actually sits down on the floor opposite him.

Keiji doesn’t move.

“My name is Kai—Kai Nobuyuki. I’m one of the practice nurses here at the centre. I’ve got some different foods in here for breakfast, but first I need to check if you have any allergies. We don’t have…well,  _ any  _ information about you on file. Do you know if there are things you cannot eat?”

Keiji narrows his eyes, but shakes his head.  _ These  _ are the questions? 

“Okay, that’s good!” Kai says, smiling again. 

He makes a note on the clipboard, and slides the bag slowly across the floor towards Keiji, who glances down at it but does not move. He’s not about to eat in front of this man. 

Kai seems to realise this after a moment or so, and clears his throat. “Alright. I’ll go in a minute. But first…I know you’ve had a very difficult experience. I’m here to help ease things, any way I can, but we need to fill in some of these blanks. Can…can you read?”

Keiji nods once. It’s an odd jump, but he supposes it makes sense. They’ll want to know things about the house, and the men and the master, just the way he heard some of the men discussing once. His knowledge is dangerous, although he has no idea which parts anyone would want to hear—

“Ah, I’m glad,” Kai says. “That makes things a lot easier.” He lets the clipboard drop, allowing Keiji to see the paper. “I know this seems like a lot to ask for, but if we could answer some of these questions it would help us to help  _ you _ .” He clears his throat again. “It says here that you’re mute. Is that correct? Sometimes the night staff can be a little…quick to make judgements.”

Keiji wonders if he should correct him, but the more he thinks about it the worse an idea it seems. He can’t  _ really  _ be sure these people are safe. So far they have kept him in a different but just as effective a prison as the house, treating him like a child or a fool. 

He made the mistake of trusting a friendly face once before. And he’s not really sure he can remember how to speak in  _ any  _ case. Certainly his attempts so far haven’t amounted to anything.

“It’s fine,” Kai assures him, apparently taking his silence for a deliberate answer. “But you can’t sign either?” He pauses just long enough for Keiji to shake his head, and then purses his lips. “Do you…know how long it’s been? How long you were in that house?”

Keiji stares at him. He is nineteen years old. He’s counted his birthday every year, even if no one else has, so he knows that much. He also knows that he was eight when his powers came in, but he’s never thought about the difference between the two numbers. There are too many memories in that time he doesn’t want to think about—too many nightmares which have blurred into one, marked only by his firm knowledge of his age changing each year as the date comes round.

He nods, slowly.

“Okay,” Kai says, smiling gently, and Keiji doesn’t know what to do about his gentle way of speaking because it feels all  _ wrong _ . “You’re doing fine. Can you…show me, somehow? For example. Has it been weeks? Months? Years?” 

Keiji nods at the last of those three, and Kai closes his eyes, sighing.

“I had a feeling, but...I’m sorry,” he says, opening them again. “Can you…write how many? Or tally them up?” He offers Keiji the clipboard and the pen. 

Keiji’s hand shakes as he leans forward to take the pen. Barring the failed attempts at writing from the night before, he can’t remember the last time he held one. It feels strange and alien in his hand. He leaves the clipboard on the floor rather than pick it up, and reaches down to draw two slightly shaky lines next to each other at the top of the sheet of paper. 

“Two?” Kai asks. “It’s been two years?” There’s a strange sort of hope written across his face as he speaks, which Keiji can’t understand.

He watches Kai warily as he shakes his head in answer, and is a little surprised to see that hopeful expression die.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Keiji is nineteen, still, when Kai leads him into the daylight outside for the first time in eleven years.

He’s been at the rehabilitation centre for six days. Six days of staring wistfully but not daring to ask; of patiently working his way as best he can through tests both easy and hard.

Easy are demonstrations of his power, and picking out the syllables of his name from a chart of hiragana which Kai provides—the nurse seems genuinely pleased to learn Keiji’s name, even if it _does_ take him a long time to remember the whole thing. None of the kanji that Kai suggests for how it should be written look familiar, but Kai assures him it’s fine, and that Keiji has provided more than enough to work with.

Hard is remembering the lost family who go with his name, and trying to describe, through both a haze of years _and_ an incredibly slow and limited method of communicating, what happened to him. Hard is relaxing his power enough to be able to provide samples of his own blood for testing. Hard is learning not to flinch each time someone calls his name, or believing Kai when he tells Keiji that it’s fine for him to leave his room in the mornings whenever he likes.

And perhaps hardest of all is Kai sitting him down in another comfortable chair, and gently breaking the news which Keiji only realises he already knew as he hears it again—that he really is alone in the world.

He doesn’t cry. He feels as numb as his throat, cold and trembling, and it’s only when Kai clears his _own_ —a short, sharp cough—that Keiji loses reality amid a screaming torrent of darkness and terror; plaintive cries calling out into the night as rough hands seize hold of him, and drag him from his bed.

It’s later still, when Kai suggests a walk in the garden to clear his head, that Keiji at last feels the prickle of tears before they start to fall.

 

* * *

 

They sit on the grass while birds perch invisible in trees around them and sing on. Loud and carefree; unaware of what their clear voices mean to Keiji, who has none. He runs his fingers through the grass and simply _stares_ , because the garden is not large but no window can compare to _this_.

“Akaashi-san,” Kai asks eventually—and Keiji is still unsure how he feels about the honorific, but Kai says he has earnt his respect and at least this half of his name does not provoke a reflexive flinch—“when was the last time you were outside?”

Keiji frowns, and reaches for the clipboard he has been given to help him communicate. Complicated ideas require the tablet with which he can type kanji, but for this he can wrestle his hands into writing the number ‘fifteen’. Kai has been encouraging him to sign when he can, but he knows that more people will understand the written word, and practice seems sensible.

“And you were allowed outside until then?” Kai asks.

Now comes the tablet. It still feels strange to be able to express his thoughts, and they are fractured; disjointed. Words don’t flow smoothly like they seem to for other people—they come to him in snatches. It’s hard to form full sentences when what he _thinks_ are feelings. Abstract and non-linear. Forming sentences of his own is an art he has all but forgotten.

_::Not allowed::_ he types slowly, pausing to remember the shape of the word he needs next. The best match doesn’t fit the kanji he is familiar with, so he has to backtrack and find a substitute. _::Running.::_

“It must have taken quite a lot of courage to attempt an escape,” Kai remarks.

Keiji holds up a hand with five digits fully extended, watching Kai carefully for his reaction. But the nurse is good at staying level and calm, and the only outward sign of surprise is a slight raising of his eyebrows.

“You got outside each time?”

Keiji nods. _::Stuck men. Couldn’t catch me.::_ He pauses, remembered fear briefly halting his fingers as they sweep across the screen.

_::Threw things. Stuck those too.::_ Another pause, hands already hovering over the first hiragana needed to type out the next word.

Can he trust Kai with this? This is the thing the master wanted from his power. The part which might have been useful to the men, even as it terrified Keiji. So far these people don’t seem to have worked it out.

If they don’t know what he can do, they can’t test him for it…can they?

He shudders and skips ahead, moving his hands as quickly as he dares: _::Man made me sick. Power did it. Didn’t touch to stop me::_

Kai frowns, probably noticing the hesitation— _obviously_ noticing the hesitation, and Keiji waits a long moment for the order to tell him what he intentionally left out because surely it’s obvious, surely he’ll notice the omission and realise. Surely he will be _angry_ that Keiji is deceiving him, and send him back indoors away from the warm sunlight on his skin—

“One of the men had a power which could stop you? Did they set him to guard you, in the end?”

Keiji stares at him. He has known the nurse Kai for six days now; learnt all his tells. He can see in Kai’s face that Kai _knows_ he has not told him everything. It has happened before—but never for something which could indicate his future use to these people, and always Kai has acknowledged that Keiji has left things out. Always Kai has reminded him that he has time to find the words.

Is this a test? It has to be a test. But there are no collars or cuffs to hold him, and no bars on his window, and Keiji is almost sure they do not know how well his power works. He _could_ get free, if they start to deny him food. There are no men with the power to cripple him with nausea or fear any more.

If it is a test, then, it is a poor one. These people have not contained him well enough to prevent his escape. The camera does not follow him around his room at night and there are blind spots along the corridors. The cafeteria doors are not locked. The windows are wide and unbarred and even the door to his room at night is unbolted. He has tested it and can walk up and down the corridor three times between the patrols of the night guard.

If it is a test, Keiji will test them back, and learn the full boundaries of his new prison.

_::No guard. Chains::_ he types, daring even to leave out why the chains worked so well. _::At night. When not working::_

He’s given far more detailed answers for far smaller prompts over previous days, revelling in his newfound ability to be understood by another. But if Kai really will allow him to skip things, how far can he push that silence? How much is he allowed not to say about his life? It’s a boundary he _needs_ to know.

“So that started when you were fifteen?”

This time Keiji doesn’t even reach for the tablet, choosing simply to nod.

Kai sighs, and Keiji halts midway through putting the tablet down on the grass. He turns rigid, sticking himself to ensure he does not move at all.

Here. Here is where he has pushed the boundary too far then.

But Kai’s face softens further, and the words he says are not angry or loud. In fact, when he speaks it is far more softly than he has been all morning:

“I’m sorry, Akaashi-san. Let’s stop this chat here. I shouldn’t have pushed.”

If Keiji had not already frozen his ribs in place he would have choked on his breath. In the time he has known Kai, the nurse has always been patient, and never angry, but there again Keiji has always been sure to follow the rules up until now.

And it’s one thing to be _told_ he is free, but another entirely to begin to grasp the full implications. To understand that freedom is not all in open spaces and unshackled wrists, or in the absence of angry captors who would fill his waking hours with endless labour.

The high walls around the garden penning him in don’t matter a jot in that moment, because Keiji can suddenly taste the true freedom Kai is offering—that of his own self and of his mind, to share or keep to himself as he _chooses_. There’s small wonder, then, that his eyes blur with tears for only the second time since his arrival at the centre.

 

* * *

 

It’s a while before Keiji really accepts Kai’s explanation that he is allowed into the small garden almost whenever he likes. It’s bewildering at first, and easier to latch onto the fixed routine the nurses follow instead. He wakes at dawn, and remains in his room until seven, when the centre’s cafeteria opens. There are numerous people at the centre—staff and patients alike—but none of them pay him any notice as he eats quickly and returns to his room so that he can be showered and dressed by eight.

At eight, more staff arrive and the corridors get busier. Keiji leaves his room in time with this rush, learning all the new faces as he makes his way to the library and marveling at how _many_ there are.

The afternoons are when Kai visits, or he has ‘sessions’ with some of the other staff at the centre. Mornings, then, are for self-taught lessons. Bit by bit he is catching up on years of schoolwork he was given no opportunity to learn.

Writing is harder than reading, so he is sure to make use of the exercise book Kai gives him, copying kanji over and over to learn how to shape them. It’s tedious but satisfying—even within a week or two he notices that the pencil feels less uncomfortable, and his hand doesn’t cramp so quickly as it had in his first days of freedom.

After years of fetching and carrying, chopping vegetables, cleaning, and all the other work he did around the house, the rehabilitation centre seems like some sort of paradise. There is no one to tell him where to go or what to read, although the librarian unsubtly steers him in the direction of books which aren’t full of kanji he never got to learn, and on his fifth day visiting, hands him a fat dictionary.

“They’re organising a tutor, apparently,” the librarian says with a shrug. “But nothing happens fast in this place, and you’re not gonna have Kai around to help all the time. Or me. I have too much to do in here.”

Keiji stares, first at the librarian, then the large book on the table in front of him, and then back at the librarian again. His eyes narrow, briefly darting to the small nametag the man wears.

“Look. I’m not good at people,” the librarian— _Futakuchi_ —adds, folding his arms and looking down at Keiji with an odd, unreadable expression on his face. “But you’re obviously not stupid, so I figure you won’t have a problem. You can teach yourself kanji from the dictionary, and who _cares_ if you don’t know how to pronounce them? I mean, not being funny, but it won’t exactly make much difference. And at least then you could read properly, right?”

Keiji narrows his eyes further, clutching at his pencil and leaning back slightly in his chair. He’s aware that Futakuchi must know about him. Kai has avoided mentioning the subject, but even he has sometimes fallen prey to forgetting that Keiji is _mute_ , not deaf. Keiji can hear the radio, and the television in the staff room and cafeteria. Even people in the world _outside_ know about him—about the rescue, at least, if not who he actually is. And so far, all the staff he has met at the rehabilitation centre appear to have been briefed on his situation before they are introduced. Most of them visibly pity him, or treat him as though he is made of bone china. The librarian’s attitude is disarming, and unnerving in its unexpectedness.

If he could only talk, Keiji could ask why—

_Oh_ . But now he _can_ talk...sort of.

He reaches for the tablet computer, which Kai has suggested he carry with him until he masters signing and writing.

_::Helping. Why.::_ he types, before turning it in place.

Futakuchi snorts. “This a _rehab_ centre’s library you know. Why do you think I’m working here? I might get called an asshole sometimes but that doesn’t mean I actually _am_ one.” He frowns, and leans closer for a moment before backing up again with a wince when Keiji flinches. “Also I heard from Kai that it was Yahaba who booked you in, and he really pisses me off sometimes. He reckoned you couldn’t read at first, so honestly? At this point I halfway just want to see the look on his face when this tutor _does_ eventually show up, and there you are barely even needing them. You can call it petty if you like, but spite’s a real motivator in my experience.”

Keiji belatedly realises he is staring, and looks down at the desk instead. He’s not sure what to make of Futakuchi, who is so unlike everyone else he can ever remember meeting. It’s unsettling, shifting him off-balance just as he has started to feel like he understands how people outside the house behave. And yet at the same time, he realises he doesn’t actually feel uncomfortable, just...surprised.

He pulls the tablet back towards himself after a minute or so’s thought, and carefully—with deliberate slowness—taps out his reply:

_::I reading books. All books. Showing Yahaba. Showing tutor.::_ He pauses, sticking himself in place reflexively as Futakuchi bursts out laughing.

Steeling himself, Keiji relaxes his body and looks up to meet the other man’s eyes after adding: _::Showing everyone::_

Futakuchi beams at him. “ _Excellent_.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, initially, my plan for this story featured a nice, neat rotation of PoV each chapter. As you can see, this did not happen. At one point this was chapter seven. For what will become obvious reasons next week, I had to shunt things around. What the hell is that 'structure' thing _anyway_ , right?
> 
> Also, thank you for the positive feedback I've had for this story so far! Under normal circumstances I would try to reply to comments, but my life is a raging fire of deadlines and chaos at the moment, and I am _so _glad I have a buffer, let me tell you.__


	6. Chapter 6

Koutarou knows what the meeting is about before he even walks into the room, so he manages to keep his face mostly level when he is told that he’s being put on leave pending an investigation into the so-called “disaster” that was his first mission in command. He doesn’t even react when they say things like “reckless and irresponsible”, or “unsuitable for command”, even though literally all of these assholes were totally fine with his plan when he laid it out to them before the mission started.

It’s exactly like Kenma warned him—they’re looking for someone to blame because they don’t want to admit that their precious intel was wrong. There was never meant to be a hostage, or prisoner, or whatever that poor guy was. But he was there all the same, and word got out, and it’s a lot easier to pin it all on someone young and inexperienced instead of all the boring people in suits who have been covering their own asses since before Koutarou even started _school_.

He doesn’t bother to defend himself much. He knows that they already decided what they’re going to do, and that’s to pack him off back to training again for a year so they can tell the general public that it’s all under control. With something like that on his record, Koutarou can wave goodbye to pretty much ever holding a position of command again. And the fact that they’re already talking about it even though their investigation hasn’t even _started_ yet means it’s inevitable.

But the worst part—the thing that _really_ hurts—is that there’s a reason he already knows this going into the meeting. It’s why he got his probably-well-meant pep-talk from Kenma the day before, and it’s because they already said the exact same things to Kuroo, just because he happened to go along on the mission as well.

Kuroo, who didn’t do anything wrong. Who literally followed orders even though he could have been commanding the mission _himself_. Blamed for the mistake of just being there when things went wrong.

And now they’ve both been told they’ll be packed off to where no one can see them until the general public forget all about it, and never mind the fact that this is going to ruin their whole careers, because what _really_ matters is that no one ever blames the people at the top.

“Do you have a closing statement to add to this, Bokuto?” the general asks.

“Yeah,” Koutarou says, standing up and resting his hands on the table. He leans down with a little too much force and the wood beneath his palms splinters. “This is complete _horse shit_.”

 

* * *

 

Despite what a lot of people say, and what most of the suited assholes at Command now think, Koutarou is not stupid. He doesn’t regret what he said—not _much_ at least—even though it’s basically a death sentence for his chances of coming out of the situation intact. Maybe _some_ people can lie through their teeth to save their career, but he’s damned if he’s going to be like them. Not when he’s supposed to be so much better. When he had such hopes of being someone to look _up_ to.

He still knows he fucked up of course. Not least of all because Kenma is already waiting outside for him, arms folded as he sits on the chair while staring off into space. He doesn’t look up when Koutarou closes the door behind him, but he doesn’t really need to either, because Koutarou slams it hard enough that it bounces right off its hinges. It’s not like anyone could miss _that_ happening.

“I did warn you,” Kenma mutters.

He still hasn’t moved, despite the uproar suddenly emerging from the other side of the doorway. Koutarou is rattled enough after his meeting that he has room in his head to wonder if Kenma would even bat an eyelid if he lifted the whole chair he’s sat on with him still in it, and ran down the corridor carrying him on one outstretched hand. He doesn’t do it though, because Kenma actually isn’t in trouble yet. And seeing as working with Koutarou is apparently such a terrible thing that even _Tsukishima_ got a reprimand, he’d rather not risk his misfortune spreading any further.

…He _also_ doesn’t do it because he knows Kenma would be really annoyed.

“I don’t care,” he says at last, and both of them know it’s a lie, but at least Kenma knows when to stay quiet. Or maybe he’d just stay quiet no matter what, but honestly Koutarou isn’t in the mood to worry about things like that when he’s just thrown a lifetime’s worth of hopes and dreams away with one pointless gesture.

At least it was a _cool_ gesture. If anyone who cared had been watching, they’d probably have been really impressed. He kinda wishes Kuroo could have seen it, actually.

Kenma gets up with a sigh and follows him as he heads down the corridor to clear out his locker, and although he doesn’t ask—he never asks, actually—Koutarou finds himself saying:

“I just wanted to do the right thing. I know I fucked up, Kenma, really I do. And there’s probably a load of stuff I could have done differently, but…but even _you_ didn’t know that guy was in there and you know pretty much _everything_. And they were happy enough for me to make an example when it was about them getting to make a speech afterwards about how they weren’t gonna keep putting up with organised crime and all that shit, but now—”

Kenma sighs, and out of the corner of his eye Koutarou sees him glance back at the meeting room.

“What are they saying?” Koutarou asks.

Kenma shakes his head, and shoves his hands into his pockets. They’re a little way along the corridor before he finally mutters: “The civilian is _mute._ ” He huffs, shaking his head a little more so that his hair more evenly falls to either side of his face. "It's the reason I couldn’t hear him with my power. He was in there under our noses the whole time, which means they relied just on my report, and didn’t make any extra checks. _That’s_ what went wrong.” He pauses and looks away, adding: “You’re too good for them.”

 

* * *

 

Koutarou’s so-called holiday lasts a month. He spends it at home, or at the training centre, deliberately not turning on the news and pointedly ignoring the stares from random people in the street as he travels between the two. At least in the compound around headquarters, fellow peacekeepers give him sympathetic looks rather than wary ones.

But nothing lasts forever, even limbo. It seems both an eternity and no time at all later that he’s summoned back to hear his fate officially. This time, Kenma _and_ Kuroo give him a pep talk before he goes in, warning him not to give them any more ammunition. Koutarou frowns, because he knows they’re right, but he _also_ knows that he’s probably not going to come out of this well no matter _how_ hard he tries.

Talking to people just isn’t his strength. _Strength_ is his strength—that and helping his team through life-or-death situations, and reacting fast to save people from immediate and obvious danger. He’s spent more than half his life training for a battlefield, one way or another. It’s what he’s built for—what he was _born_ for.

He _wasn’t_ born to keep a straight face while a group of old guys who haven’t the faintest idea of what it’s like to put your life on the line judge him. Nor was he born to stand there and not react while they sit around and decide amongst themselves whether or not he did a good enough job risking his life that he gets to put himself in harm's way _again_.

The muttering is almost unbearable. Worse than the sheets of paper they keep rustling, like they’re trying on _purpose_ to set him off. According to Kenma’s pep-talk, they probably are. Koutarou clenches his hands into fists behind his back, and tries not to look like he’s grinding his teeth as he waits for them to deliver their verdict.

“Bokuto,” the director general says, from his comfy leather seat in the centre of the table of old guys. “I am sure you’re aware of the severity of the situation we have laid out over this meeting and the last, and the general mood of the public when it comes to the entire matter.”

Koutarou hasn’t got a clue how the general public feel and he’s pretty sure the general knows that, but he doesn’t say anything. Kenma’s strict warning is still echoing in his mind.

“We can’t be seen to be lax about public safety,” the general goes on, frowning deeply enough that he’s got not two but _three_ deep wrinkles in between his eyebrows, and that takes a lot of frowning to achieve. “You must understand the implications of a peacekeeper of your… _formidability_ being a liability. My colleagues and I have discussed it, and we feel that it would be best if you were given some additional training. For the look of the thing, if nothing else. Once you have graduated this course we can begin to discuss options, but being realistic—”

“You don’t want me commanding any more,” Koutarou says flatly, hands clasped so tightly together that he’s lost all feeling in his fingers.

“You’re a very capable young man,” an old geezer on the left says, peering at him down a short, unbroken nose. Koutarou’s has been slightly crooked since a training accident when he was fifteen. “But we cannot risk any more accidents, especially with the additional stakes now at play.”

Koutarou manages to stop himself asking a dumb question like: “What additional stakes?” because these guys clearly aren’t going to tell him, and Kuroo and Kenma both warned him they’d try to trip him up and this sounds a _lot_ like that. Besides. If Kenma hasn’t told him about something, either he doesn’t need to know or it doesn’t exist.

“I’m sure you understand,” the old geezer says, and Koutarou really, really doesn’t.

He nods anyway though, because they already took away his dream and he’s not going to give them the satisfaction of taking his pride as well.

 

* * *

 

Koutarou is given an extra week before this so-called “additional training”, which has Kuroo wrinkling his nose in disgust when they compare notes.

“Kenma said they have us down as ‘emotionally unstable’ in our records,” he says, slumping down beside Koutarou on the sofa in the training facility’s common room. “He reckons they don’t want anyone believing us if we let slip that they had no idea what they were sending us into.”

Koutarou nods, because he really doesn’t have the energy for anything else. It makes sense though. Sounds like exactly the kind of thing Kenma keeps listing as some of the reasons he never trained as a peacekeeper himself. Kenma always _was_ the smart one.

“So where is this training whatever?” Koutarou asks.

He has it all written down in the report he was given, but he can’t actually bring himself to open the envelope. It’s pointless, because the whole thing is a disaster and he made the mistake of turning on the news earlier, and people have been saying a lot about it apparently, most of it making out that he’s angry and out of control, and _somehow_ someone got a photo of him in the middle of lifting the wall off Kuroo and the guy under the rubble, and you can’t quite make out any details except for the fact he’s a lot bigger and broader than the person he was trying to save—and even Kuroo, honestly—and apparently that’s dangerous because he might “turn his strength on the wrong people”, and now half of them are _scared_ of him.

Don’t any of them think about what they’re saying before they say it?

“They’re treating us like criminals,” he adds, when Kuroo doesn’t answer.

Kuroo clears his throat, and offers his open packet of wasabi peas. “About that.”

 

* * *

 

Koutarou and Kuroo arrive for their mandatory stay at the rehab centre together, because it sure as hell beats turning up alone.

It’s “Stage One” apparently: the part the director general described as being for the look of it, and which _Kenma_ described as the general covering his own ass because he likes his office more than he likes doing the job which got him there in the first place. Koutarou actually kinda likes it when Kenma loses his temper, and he lost it in a _big_ way over this whole mess. It makes it easier to believe he really didn’t do anything quite so terrible as all that, at least.

Their sessions are scheduled in a couple of poky offices near the front of the building—which is actually just a special wing off to one side of the main training facility grounds, but it’s the wing which people don’t normally talk about. Koutarou has even been through rehabilitation before, but last time it was for a particularly bad break in his leg, which was just a few hour-long appointments.

Physio was a completely different beast to what’s going on now. A much _nicer_ beast, because it’s a lot easier to do exercises than it is to talk about why he made all the decisions he made in a mission which was _supposed_ to be a simple in and out, and turned into anything but.

There are at least some physical aspects of this round though, and they know enough about his power here that they got in the equipment he has to actually _try_ and break, rather than the kind which breaks unless he tries _not_ to. The small gym is almost as good a setup as the main training facility’s one.

He and Kuroo have got one week sleeping at the rehab centre, for the sake of the director being able to say he checked them in on camera. It means Koutarou gets to spend a solid four or five hours in the gym each morning, and another three at night—in between the pointless counseling sessions which even the _therapist_ gives up on after the first twenty minutes or so. They sit and chat about his old injuries instead.

The first day is full of all the boring stuff which goes with being a scapegoat, and the second day Koutarou spends every free moment in the gym, working off his general frustration at this whole mess. So it’s not until the _third_ day that he’s loitering around the small canteen long enough to see the skinny frame and pale skin of the guy who was accidentally responsible for half this disaster happening in the first place. He's sat at a table in the corner with the same wild-animal look on his face as he’d had while being chained to the floor, and he's staring right at them.

“Well shit, _this_ is fucked up,” Kuroo mutters from beside him, and that pretty much sums up Koutarou’s whole life.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone who has commented or subscribed! It really does mean a lot to me, and if my life were less of a hot mess right now I would try to do better at replying to comments. I hope you've enjoyed this chapter too. (Yay Kenma made an in-person appearance at last!)


	7. Chapter 7

Tetsurou is well aware that their situation is, as Kenma reported Bokuto so eloquently putting it, complete horse shit. It’s been obvious ever since Tsukishima was hastily reassigned to a branch halfway across the country, remote and locked-down enough that he can’t easily stay in touch with his former _co-workers_ , let alone get word to the press.

But there’s a difference between knowing something in theory, and actually feeling the effects of it hit home. So it’s not until he’s stood outside the rehab centre with Bokuto that he really appreciates the level to which the board have completely fucked them over, purely in order to save their own precious, gilded asses.

He’s lucky enough that he’s never needed to visit the institution’s rehab centre before, having scraped through his training with only minor injuries. That’s partly thanks to his power, and partly thanks to him being the sort of guy who checks twice and jumps once.

Of course, that’s not the reason Tetsurou lets Bokuto lead the way inside, but there’s something oddly poetic about it, all the same.

Although on second thought, for Bokuto it’s possibly more like a slap in the face. He hopes not.

 

* * *

 

After they give their “No comment”s to the token press and make their way past them into the building, Tetsurou is led to a small room with a bed and en-suite and not a whole lot else. He’s also given a questionnaire three pages long about his health. The level to which this is a face-saving exercise alone becomes apparent when the person they’ve sent to “check him in” shrugs as he hands it over again and remarks that honestly, Tetsurou probably didn’t need to bother filling it out.

It’s...oddly comforting that everyone involved knows what a waste of time this is—except the board who sent them there, apparently, and the media who’ve been baying for their blood ever since some photo leaked of the civilian “cowering” on the ground beneath Bokuto and his armful of wall.

Honestly, he almost would have understood the controversy had the poor guy shown _any_ sign of being frightened by Bokuto specifically. Or of, say, he hadn’t been one of the most impressively Together kidnapping victims Tetsurou has ever met.

His captors had been the most infamous yakuza house in five districts, too. The facts together just don’t add up. _Especially_ considering how implausible it is for a photo like that to be leaked to the media so quickly—if at all. The whole thing reeks, and he’s glad Kenma is too useful to Command to have been dragged down with them, because at least someone’s left who can get to the bottom of it.

There are those who might consider him a suspicious bastard, but Tetsurou would prefer to think of himself as a person who plans on getting through his time as a peacekeeper and out the other side without being court-martialed. The way things are going, he’s starting to wonder if he’s been suspicious _enough_.

 

* * *

 

The whole rehab centre is designed to be peaceful and tranquil, and aid in the removal of stress. So it’s no wonder that he and Bokuto find themselves in the gym at the end of their first day, burning off the mountains of excess energy they have. They’re working men. It just feels _wrong_ to have this much free time. Worse still, Tetsurou is well aware that they’ve had a lot less of that free time on Day One than they’re probably going to have for the rest of the week. The joke which was his check-in sheet is clear evidence that the staff apparently have better things to do than play along with the general’s PR stunt.

Annoyingly though, they’ve gone along with it enough that he and Bokuto are without their phones and all other technological devices, having handed them in upon arrival. They’ve also been permitted only a few “luxuries”, such as their own personal hygiene products and training clothes. Apparently the risk of more “leaks” revealing that their stay is a sham just can’t be countenanced or something.

What it means, though, is that he can’t check in with Kenma unless he applies for time at the altogether-too-public phone in the common room, which is categorically out of the question because they’ll be monitoring it, _duh_. It’s frustrating, and isolating, and if nothing else it really drives home just how much he’s come to rely on Kenma’s presence over the years, both as his closest companion and as a sort of barometer for how deep the shit he’s in really is.

No matter what—no matter how reluctant—Kenma has always been there with the answers. Now he’s missing, and more than anything else, his absence burns. Tetsurou’s lost count already of how many times he’s gone to reach for his phone because Kenma isn’t there in person, only to realise he isn’t even there as a voice, either.

“I apologise in advance,” he says to the shower head when he and Bokuto finally turn in for the night, still brimming with too much energy they would normally have burnt off by _working_. “I’m probably going to annoy you with how clingy I am when I get out of this place.”

The conversation can only go one way, of course, but it’s better than nothing. At least they aren’t _both_ cut off from each other, and it’s only for a week before this whole nonsense is over. And then Tetsurou can return to his regularly scheduled work, albeit having been set back a good year or two thanks to the brand new blemishes on his record. Why, it’s almost as though Command are wary of either Bokuto or himself ever finding themselves in a position of authority. Imagine that.

 

* * *

 

Day two is more of the same. A _lot_ more of the gym, in fact, because it turns out that when you’re deemed healthy in a rehab centre, there really is nothing else to do. He’s not about to take up the time of the staff, who have more important things to do helping the people who actually _need_ to be here. It’s bad enough that _Command_ are treating the place like a PR-friendly dressing down to appease the squeamish among the population. Maybe some of those civilians have never liked the idea of government-trained soldiers with powers, but that’s no excuse to burden health workers with baggage.

The centre’s not devoid of friendly faces though, which is some comfort. Tetsurou recognises an old friend from his volleyball days back in high school, although Kai’s too busy to do more than say a quick hello as he heads off to the staff room for his break. Still, it’s good to know Kai’s doing alright for himself. He hasn’t caught up with his old teammates in _years_.

Day three rolls around, and it’s after a morning of halfway productive exercise that everything goes to shit.

In fairness, Tetsurou _can_ think of more awkward situations than being stuck in the same rehab centre as a guy who you ineptly rescued from what was—according to Kenma—years of captivity, inadvertently screwing over your entire life’s career plans in the process.

For one, his mother could have walked in on him while he and Bokuto were ‘experimenting’ in his bedroom, back when they were horny teenagers. And in fact, the only reason she _hadn’t_ was that Kenma had heard them and managed to distract her, which was more than embarrassing enough to make up for it.

For another, the guy could have flinched or caused a scene. Or _Bokuto_ could have flinched or caused a scene. And either one of those situations would have been more or less understandable, so all-told it’s a relief that there’s just a long, awkward staring contest before the other guy ducks his head and returns his attention to a book on the table he’s sitting at. Bokuto slumps into his seat a moment later, dropping his head into his hands.

“This is the worst luck in the _wooorld_ ,” he groans into his palms, not looking up.

Tetsurou glances over at the quiet figure in the corner as he sits opposite, and frowns. “I’m not so sure it’s an accident at all,” he mutters. “They obviously knew this guy was still here when they arranged for us to be sent in. So either they’re hoping to spin it as a PR stunt where we ‘reconcile’ and they can get us to pose for the cameras or something, or they’re hoping for the _opposite_ , so that they can ditch one or both of us for good.”

Bokuto stares at him. “Did Kenma tell you that? He—hold on, Kenma never said anything about this at all!”

“Yeah,” Tetsurou says, drumming his fingers on the table. “Which means either he knew—and thanks a _lot_ , if that’s the case—or they deliberately arranged all this in written form only so that he couldn’t find out and warn us. Either way, I don’t like it.”

“Do you think that guy’s doing okay?” Bokuto asks after a minute or so. He’s trying to be subtle about the fact he’s practically staring at the solitary figure in the corner, and failing miserably. “I mean, we never got to hear anything about him other than how he can’t talk, but if he’s still here things can’t be that great, right?”

Tetsurou shakes his head. “Not my problem,” he says, gritting his teeth. “I’m not going to cause a scene just because Command probably want an excuse to screw us over even more. We’ve been _set up_. We can’t afford to fall for the obvious trick that going over and confronting him is.”

He sighs, noticing Bokuto’s puppy-dog expression— _filled_ with concern—and adds: “Listen, whatever happens to him, he’s in the best place already. No one’s baying for _his_ blood. And I told you I saw Kai working here, right? He’s not the kind of person to knowingly let anyone suffer, and if you’re really worried about it all, we can get Kenma to check up on him in a few weeks. We already did our part though, and _this_ is where it got us. You’re just gonna have to keep your head down from now on. Your heart of gold’s going to get you in trouble, you know.”

And it’s all fine and good to say that, really it is. Because he knows he’s right. They’ve both been thrown to the wolves, and—let’s be honest—a PR mishap isn’t a good enough excuse to dump two top-of-their-class, _powered_ soldiers with excellent command potential onto a metaphorical trash heap. Until he knows what’s really going on, he’s not about to risk either himself or those he cares about no matter _how_ noble the cause.

But his plan of ‘don’t get involved’ basically counts for nothing when the poor bastard at the centre of it all walks right up to them as they attempt to leave the room. Before they can do anything, he holds up a tablet computer to display a message typed out using the most shockingly bad grammar Tetsurou has seen in years:

_::I am not expect seeing you. I wanting to say I gladness for rescue.::_

It’s halfway reflex that has Tetsurou glancing out of the corner of his eye to see what Bokuto makes of it all. Under the circumstances he’s expecting either a mostly panicked attempt at deflection to get away from the guy, or one of Bokuto’s somewhat infamous ego trips in which he starts celebrating his triumph and (probably) unintentionally making himself look like a complete idiot.

Instead, Bokuto is just staring, eyes darting between the screen and the level eyes of whatever-his-name-is like he’s some small animal caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.

“But we dropped a _house_ on you,” is Bokuto’s eventual distraught response, after what seems like a _lot_ of racking his brain for words.

Palm: meet face. Except Tetsurou _doesn’t_ give in to what he would rather like to do in this particular moment, because he’s perfectly aware that they have a pretty large audience here. And who knows, perhaps they actually schooled this guy to walk up and be grateful like some kind of sick ‘see, he’s happy really’ demonstration. In fact, the more he thinks about it the likelier that one seems.

There’s a brief shake of the head from the silent man in front of them, and the tablet is flipped around while he types. Tetsurou has to hand it to him. For a guy they tried to pull out of the rubble just a month or two ago, he’s holding _really_ steady.

He takes a while to type his message though, hand pausing a few millimetres from the screen now and then. From the way he frowns at it, tapping the screen slowly and very deliberately, Tetsurou think he hasn’t been doing this sort of thing for very long at all. It’s enough to make him feel a little guilty over his uncharitable thoughts about the guy’s terrible grammar.

_::Not danger from house. Danger from people. Now people dead.::  
::Grateful.:: _

A few solemn blinks later the man bows to each of them in turn and just walks away. It’s a full minute or so after he leaves that Bokuto whines:

“Man, he didn’t even tell us his _name!_ Now I still have to think of him as just ‘that guy’ or something.”

Okay, scratch that previous thought. Tetsurou feels _really_ bad for thinking that this was some kind of stunt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this is the part where I have to do what I really hoped I wouldn't have to, and take a break. I've had a lot going on over the last few weeks, and now on top of that drama I am moving house on about a fortnight's notice. As a result, writing is something I won't reliably have time for in the short-term. I have the next chapter part-written, but I'd rather take the extra week and make sure it's the best it could be, even if I do manage to scrape some writing time out of the chaos. 
> 
> It's frustrating, given that I started with such a comfortable cushion, but apparently life _really_ likes throwing obstacles in my way right now. If all goes well though, I will see you on the 23d with the next chapter, and the worst of the chaos should have passed!


	8. Chapter 8

Keiji does not see much of the two men who changed his whole life, although he learns that they will be in the centre for several more days. By now, almost two months into his routine, he is quite adept at eavesdropping and obtaining information. 

It’s Futakuchi who first tells him their names—although as with almost everything Futakuchi tells him, the impression Keiji gets is that the librarian is more or less just seeking information for  _ himself _ .

“I hear you got talking to Bokuto and Kuroo,” is how he casually brings up the topic just a few hours after the encounter, having wandered over to Keiji’s corner in the library. 

Keiji has no meetings or sessions on a Wednesday after lunch, and therefore spends the hours reading; catching up on stories he might otherwise have enjoyed as a child. Futakuchi has gotten good at recommendations, and stops by now and then to see how he’s getting on. Usually there is some gossip he wishes to share, but this is the first time it has concerned Keiji himself. With a near-silent sigh, he lays down his book and reaches for the tablet.

“Nope!” Futakuchi says, snatching it away with a grin. “Kai’s orders, remember? You’re not gonna get any better at signing if you don’t practice.”

Keiji holds back another sigh. Signing is not easy. The hand signals are simple enough for the most part—although he knows it will take him longer to remember enough that he is fluent—but signing is not all about hands. There’s body language and facial expression too, and this is something which does not come naturally to Keiji at  _ all _ . He has learnt to keep his body language to a minimum. Learnt to keep his face calm and neutral. He’s spent most of his life doing the  _ opposite  _ of what his signing teacher wants, in fact. Is there any wonder he prefers to use the written word to express himself?

_ /Don’t know names/ _ he signs, grateful that these gestures at least are simple and distinctive, and can be done without making eye contact.

“You never heard their names? Damn, you really  _ do  _ have a narrow focus sometimes. I’m talking about the two who pulled you out. Your rescuers! Man, what were you even talking about if you didn’t make introductions?”

_ /Say thank you/ _ Keiji signs. He reaches for a piece of paper seeing as Futakuchi still has hold of the tablet, and writes in mostly legible kanji the rest of his sentence:  _ Owed thanks. Didn’t need more talking. Made problems before. Wanted…I am grateful. Even when others not. _

“You just walked up and told them all that and didn’t even stick around to hear their names?”

Keiji shakes his head, and points at the paper.  _ /Not say that. Say thank you./ _

“Man, you really are something else,” Futakuchi remarks, leaning back against the wall. “I gotta say, I can’t wait to see what you make of the world outside this place. Or what it makes of  _ you _ , come to that.”

Keiji blinks. He’s heard people mention leaving before. He knows it’s something all the other residents of the centre are aiming for. Kai has even mentioned, once or twice, that the goal their sessions is to help prepare Keiji for that as well. All the same, Keiji has never really believed it to be true. The master spoke several times about Keiji being allowed outside should he prove himself worthy and it was  _ lies _ , always lies. Lies and threats to get him to behave. His power was too valuable to let go, even when no one could actually make use of it. 

But hearing Futakuchi mention leaving so casually is hard to ignore. There’s no encouragement, no incentive. Futakuchi does not lie—or rather, when he does, it is never very well. Why would he mention leaving unless he really  _ meant  _ it?

 

* * *

 

It’s a question he puts to Kai a few days later, burning curiosity finally grown strong enough to push past his wariness of raising the subject at all. So far, after their initial discussions of the rehabilitation centre’s purpose, no one has ever spoken about leaving to Keiji. He has no idea where he would go, or what he would be expected to do, or even if it is still a possibility at all. Without reminders, on a day-to-day basis he has mostly forgotten the idea altogether, too busy teaching himself how to write again, and learning to speak with his hands instead of his lost voice.

There’s a long silence in the wake of the written note which Keiji slides across the table. Keiji sticks himself in place before his hand starts shaking, because Kai has never refused to answer him before. Has he finally pushed too far? 

He can see already the end of his regular walks outside—the ones he’s finally allowed himself to get used to—and the freedom to choose where he goes and when. His room is forfeit, surely. This is where the punishments start; the catch he has half-consciously been waiting for this whole time— 

Kai clears his throat, and Keiji doesn’t dare look up to meet his eyes. It’s ridiculous, a part of him acknowledges. Kai has never been angry. He’s never raised his voice, let alone anything else. That small, rational corner of his mind protests that surely Kai won’t punish him just for  _ asking _ , but it is in the middle of being shouted down when Kai neatly interrupts: 

“That’s…a difficult one, I’m afraid,” he says. 

There’s nothing more for a minute or two, and Keiji recognises the pause as the usual pattern for when Kai notices that Keiji needs time to collect himself. It’s familiar, and by now there’s enough reassurance in it that Keiji can force back the screaming thoughts which proclaim doom at every corner. Kai has always been patient. Kai has never shouted. There’s no reason to believe he is angry now.

At last, Keiji looks up and meets his eyes. They are troubled; worried instead of furious. It’s not until Keiji has pulled his arm back from the paper and resumed his usual sitting position that Kai continues. 

“I want to tell you there’s no problem,” Kai says, “But unfortunately I can’t.” He sighs, laying down his notebook on the table and leaning forward with his arms crossed in front of him. “It’s a difficult situation. Ordinarily there would be a relative we could contact. In all honesty, cases of kidnapping as  _ long  _ as yours are extremely rare. It complicates matters, because you need time to adjust. Even if you  _ had  _ a relative whose care you could be placed under, you would need time to adjust, and we’ve been unable to find anyone like that.”

There’s an unease spreading across Kai now, one which Keiji hates. It’s obvious in the way Kai fidgets, when normally he sits calmly and contentedly in his chair, leaning back with the clipboard across his lap. But it prepares him. Even if he hadn’t been half suspecting its arrival in the conversation already—even if he hadn’t  _ known  _ this from the moment of his rescue—he wouldn’t have been all surprised when Kai sighs again, and shakes his head.

“I wish I didn’t have to say this, but I’m afraid your power is a factor in the matter of your leaving, too.”

Keiji nods. It’s what he’s expected this whole time, isn’t it? His power is too valuable, even if he was never any use to the master or his men. The people at the rehabilitation centre even  _ know  _ that: he’s suspected since his arrival that all their kindness has simply been a different way of accessing the power he wields. 

_ /I understand/  _ he signs, and the marvel is that he does. There’s no need to stick his face to keep his expression neutral, even if Kai’s tone suggests that the other man wishes things were different. Even if he’d half allowed himself a sliver of hope that perhaps one day he’d get to walk fully in the open, with no walls or barriers to stand in his way. 

But: “I’m not sure you do,” is what Kai says in reply. So Keiji listens, and once again, Keiji learns.

Kai begins his explanation with a long sigh, and pushes his notebook and even his  _ pen  _ to the far side of the table, where he cannot reach them to make notes the way he usually does. 

“I understand your reservations,” he says, meeting Keiji’s eyes with a soft expression on his face. “After everything you’ve been through, I know full well what this must look like to you. What it must  _ feel  _ like. I don’t want to talk over you and insist you believe me. I’d rather you come to that in your own time, but I know that I—that this whole  _ centre _ —owes you an explanation, if you’ll hear me out without interruption.”

Keiji nods, because he knows by now that Kai will not continue otherwise. And at the very least, he will learn what Kai believes. Whether or not it is what everyone else believes he’ll just have to wait and see.

“The truth is, Akaashi-san, you were raised as a weapon, and part of my job is… Well, I’m sure my higher-ups would use the term ‘decommissioning’, but I’d prefer to describe it differently. You see, at the moment, you don’t have full control over your power.”

Kai raises a hand to stop Keiji before he can sign his objections, and shakes his head. “I know what you’re going to say. You display an astonishing command in any demonstration. Your power is strong, and useful, and you’ve developed it to a point far beyond what most of your contemporaries would likely even aspire to, let alone attain, in both scope and fine-tuned precision.” 

His face twists again, lips pressing together a moment before he adds: “But it’s on a hair-trigger, still, and that’s not enough control for you to be safe outside this centre. There are far busier places than these corridors get during the morning rush. There are towns and cities filled with people who will push and shove, and if we’re to sign you off as fit to be out there, you have to be able to prevent yourself from using your power on them by accident. You’ve spent years being forced to use this power of yours constantly. Now you have to learn to turn it  _ off _ .”

Somewhere during Kai’s speech, Keiji’s thoughts stop. He’s not sure precisely when, or how long the silence after Kai is finished lasts. He’s only sure that the words lie heavy in his mind, and that it takes him a long time to find a response. They want him to  _ stop  _ using his power? For as long as he can easily remember, people have wanted to use it, seize control of it for their own purposes. It’s his only value—the sole reason he’s still alive at all—and now it’s…useless? An obstacle? He stares down at his hands and arms, streaked with faint scars. What will he do without it?

_ /What if I can’t?/  _ he manages to sign at last. Because even if he’s not sure what or who he is beyond his power, and the concept of living without almost entirely it is new and alarming, he’s been trying to turn it off already, hasn’t he? All his lessons and sessions make far more sense in that context. And while he’s better at not flinching, and all his sessions with Kai and the other staff at the centre are designed to make him more comfortable around people, so far, nothing has shaken him of his reflexive habit of sticking in place anyone that touches him. Even if it’s only briefly, it still happens. Will that stop him from ever leaving the centre at all?

“You should give yourself a lot more time before you start to worry about that eventuality,” Kai says, although his smile is watery. 

It’s a tell. Kai’s normal smiles are genuine: broad and full. His mouth and his eyes wrinkle up at the edges, and it creeps down into his body language too as he leans back and turns his face to the sky as though he is sunning himself. He only uses this fake smile when concealing something. Keiji meets his eyes and holds them. Sure enough, it’s not long before the other man sags. 

“I’d hoped we wouldn’t have this conversation just yet,” he admits. “I’d wanted you to be more confident. Assured. To have had more time to settle into your life here. But…in the eventuality that you  _ can’t  _ ever gain that control, you have two options. Either, as you say, you stay here—or a place much like it, perhaps one of our larger facilities in the countryside where at least you wouldn’t be penned in behind walls like a prison. The other option…”

He falters, brow furrowing enough that Keiji is almost afraid to ask him to continue. Whatever it is that’s coming next, it’s clear that it worries Kai. Keiji feels himself tensing, waiting for a blow even though Kai’s hands stay firmly clasped in front of him, resting on the empty table between them. 

“Akaashi-san, you are aware that this entire centre forms part of a larger military installation, right?” he asks.

Keiji nods. No one has ever stated it to him outright, but he has both eyes and brains. He sees what most of the other patients wear as they check in or out, and in any case, the logo printed across the top of his records is more than enough of a giveaway. It’s not something any of the staff have kept a secret from him—or at least, if they have, it hasn’t been with any thoroughness. 

“I want to make it clear before I say any more that while this  _ centre  _ reports to the overall authority of that institution—it’s where our funding comes from, in a large part—the staff here absolutely do not. What we discuss in our sessions remains completely private, and is stored securely, and only you and I will ever need to know what we discuss in this room.” He falters, breaking eye contact to look over at the door. “In all honesty, I would prefer not to discuss this with you now—I’d prefer not to  _ ever  _ mention it. But I know that if I don’t, eventually someone else would.”

He still won’t meet Keiji’s eyes. But he must be watching his hands on some level, because when Keiji signs a question there’s no delay in Kai’s response.

“I apologise: I’m worrying you. In truth, I’m stalling because I feel that laying this in front of you is  _ deeply  _ insensitive. It’s unfair. But it is what it is, and I suppose I owe it to you to be honest.” He rubs at his temple, finally looking up to meet Keiji’s wary expression, and says: “In the event that you are never able to contain your power enough to meet the legal criteria for release, you would have two options. Either remain in sheltered accommodation similar to this centre permanently, or take up military training designed to make use of it. Become a  _ soldier _ , essentially.”

 

* * *

 

That night, Keiji walks down endless corridors, opening door after door. There’s an exit somewhere; he knows it with every fibre of his being. All he has to do is find the right one, but each handle he turns merely leads to a rectangle of darkness. 

All he can think is the same thing, just as repetitive as his surroundings: _ I have to get out, I have to get out, I have to get out _ . But the longer he walks, the more he becomes sure he’s running out of time. If he can’t find an escape soon, all the doors will vanish and he’ll fall into darkness forever, swallowed whole. 

And then, quite suddenly, all around him are stars. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, three weeks ago: "By the 23rd the worst should have passed"
> 
> ...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA—no. No, it was still yet to come at that point.
> 
> For real, peeps, moving house is one of the most horrifically stressful things you can ever do. The worst absolutely _is_ over at this point, but there's still a lot of stuff I have outstanding, so I don't want to promise that weekly updates will resume just yet. I'm going to err on the side of safety and say that updates will probably be fortnightly for a little while, just until I can catch up on the horrendously long list of things I fell behind with these last few weeks. So I'll see you all on the 12th April!
> 
> (Feel free to come say hi over on my [twitter](https://twitter.com/TottWritesFic) or [tumblr](https://olynnansfw.tumblr.com/) accounts if you want to berate me about the direction this story is going in btw. You didn't really think it would be as simple as their meeting again at a rehab centre, did you?)


	9. Chapter 9

Keiji is twenty years old when he first takes control of his own life.

It’s hard—one of the hardest things he has ever done—but one morning, as the birds outside sing in newly green trees, and Kai is explaining a new exercise for him to try, Keiji raises his hand and interrupts.

 _/I want to be a soldier/_ he signs.

Kai stops talking. He doesn’t shout; doesn’t tell Keiji that he is wrong; doesn’t stare at him oddly. He simply looks down at the table between them, and the assembled paperwork which he has laid out for Keiji to see, and pulls his hands closer to himself. Keiji has learnt this one. It means that Kai is thinking hard before he speaks. That the words he will say will be carefully considered and chosen. It means that Kai has made a conscious decision not to react, which in turn means that he _wants_ to.

Kai does not approve of Keiji’s statement, but he is going to do his best to convince Keiji that this is not the case.

“You’ve been thinking about this for a long time, I’m sure,” he says eventually, looking up and meeting Keiji’s eyes.

Keiji nods. The unspoken question is “Why?”, but as ever, Kai has given space for Keiji to tell his reasoning or leave it out for now. Even after almost a full year of life in the centre, Keiji still has days when he marvels at the freedom.

But for now, Kai _needs_ to know. He has to understand what Keiji is thinking or, however subtly and subconsciously it might be, he will attempt to change Keiji’s mind, because he does not want anyone to value Keiji for the strength of his power ever again. It’s this side of Kai which makes him a good person, objectively, but as of now it is also a hindrance.

Keiji is a pragmatist, and has long since accepted that his life is a series of compromises. Kai might wish that were not the case, but Kai is not someone who can change that, and Kai also gets to walk out of the rehabilitation centre each night and go home. Kai is here because he _wants_ to be. And as a result, in that one, crucial respect, he is unable to comprehend Keiji at all.

 _/I’ve been here a long time but I’m no better at turning my power off/_ Keiji signs. _/Not in the way this centre requires/_

“Akaashi-san, I can’t say I would agree there,” Kai replies. “It’s true that you still use your power unconsciously, but it’s been less than a year, and you are making progress in a lot of other ways. When you consider how long your captivity lasted, I would say that honestly, there’s no reason to believe that you wouldn’t be able to gain that control someday. At the very least, I would recommend considering some time in a countryside centre. The change of setting might help—”

Keiji shakes his head, cutting Kai off for a second time.

 _/I’m making a **choice** / _he signs, trying to give extra emphasis to that final word. Adding emotion to signs is something he still finds challenging at times, particularly when his mind is in turmoil at the importance and audacity of what he is saying.

 _/If I never get control of my power, I’ll never choose how I live my life/ … /I’ll never choose_ **_where_ ** _I live my life/ … /But if I choose to be a soldier, that’s my decision/ … /I won’t need to wait and hope for something I might never have/ … /I’m an adult now/ … /I—/_

He stops, pushing down the rush of power which locks his trembling hands in place, and straightens in his seat.

 _/I’m making a choice/_ he signs again.

There’s more to say—more to explain, and clarify, but these are the only words he can manage. They’re the most important ones, at least, and from the sudden and decidedly unexpected smile on Kai’s face, they might even be the right ones.

“I suppose I should have expected it, really,” Kai says, shuffling the papers into a pile. He stacks them neatly, not troubling to write down any of what Keiji has said, and slides them over to one corner of the table out of the way. “Because you know, when I said that you’ve made a lot of progress, _this_ is what I meant.”

He draws a fresh sheet of paper from the drawer beside him, and writes out all the information he would normally jot down at the start of their session. All the information he has _already_ written down on the topmost sheet of paper on the stack, in fact.

Keiji watches warily. This is not the usual pattern, and although Kai has been known to deviate from normality every now and then to help Keiji adjust to a world which operates without a perfect routine, he has never done this before.

Only when Kai has finished writing up the date and time—the time their session was scheduled to start, Keiji notes—does Kai lift his head and meet Keiji’s eyes once more.

“I’m going to start today over,” he says, reaching over to pick up the sheet of paper containing his original notes. “And at the end of the session, you’ll have the choice of which report I file. _This_ one is the one we had already started, where we’re working on control and you haven’t said anything about being a soldier.”

Keiji nods.

“This new one,” Kai continues, “Is where you mentioned as we entered the session that you had something important to discuss with me, and we talked it all over, going back and forth about all the advantages and disadvantages which each option open to you has before you eventually made your final decision that you would like to apply to the military division of this organisation.”

He pauses, and lays the two sheets in front of Keiji. As yet they are both still incomplete. The second hardly has anything at all written on it, in fact. Despite that fact, Keiji doesn’t doubt him for a minute. There are many people at the centre who he regards as untrustworthy despite the fact that their chosen profession is to help those under their care, but Kai is not among them.

It doesn’t explain _why_ Kai is offering these alternatives to him, however. Keiji has made his feelings perfectly clear already. The choice, so far as he considers, has been made. Fortunately, Kai is perceptive as well as honest. The man smiles, and despite that Keiji has known him for almost a full year, for the first time a different side of him is visible—devoid of the calm collectedness he normally displays, and filled instead with sharp-eyed, wary cunning. It’s like a mask cracking in two, but there’s enough of the Kai he knows in that face that he doesn’t find the change as alarming as he might have.

“This centre forms a small part of the wider military installation which sponsors it,” Kai says, speaking far quieter than he had earlier. There’s disapproval in his tone now, too. “If I document even a hint that you are willing to weaponise your power, eventually, someone somewhere will find out, and they’ll seize on that and start applying pressure to ensure you do. No matter if you change your mind and dedicate yourself to a life of pacifism, they will not stop. They’re relentless.”

Keiji nods. It makes sense, and it’s not particularly surprising. He’s seen the way other people look at him, even within the rehabilitation centre. Envy and hunger; the strong, poorly concealed desire for his power, which has been his only value for so, so long.

No matter that Futakuchi remarks upon how quickly he has been catching up on the education he missed in captivity. No matter that his power’s versatility was born of trauma which haunts him even now, flaring at the briefest of human touches. With no voice to speak out—it’s amazing how few of the staff at the centre speak more than a few very basic phrases in sign language—he has never become a _person_ in many people's’ eyes. He’s just a vessel, the same as he has been for as long as he can remember.

“On the other hand,” Kai says, and now there’s another unfamiliarity in his tone of voice which has Keiji feeling a little unsettled, “If I file a report saying you announced out of the blue that you want to be a soldier and I just _agreed_ , that’s going to look as though someone is very transparently applying the sort of pressure we all pretend doesn’t exist from our military sponsors, and it’ll get flagged by the _medical_ administration. They’ll tie you up for years trying to prove something like that because a lot of them are desperate for concrete evidence so they can put a stop to it.”

He sighs. “I am well aware that I am unlikely to change your mind, Akaashi-san, but I do also want ensure that you fully understand what you are signing up to before you go any further. It’s a delicate situation. Neither side is willing to admit that they know what the other is up to, because the moment it goes public it’s going to explode, and none of us can afford that sort of bad press. What I’m telling you now…”

Kai shakes his head, brow furrowed with what looks rather like weariness despite the fact it’s morning still. “It wouldn’t go down well if anyone found out you had this information, let’s just leave it at that. But you’re in a unique position—unique as far as I’m aware of, at least. It might only be my job to get you ready for life outside this centre, but you’re a good man, and some of the orders which have been flying around other departments lately have me concerned. They _will_ exploit you in the military wing. They _will_ value only for your power and nothing else. There will be a degree of lenience to begin with owing to your history here, but past that they will expect you to cope with everything the same as other soldiers. They won’t give quarter, or—”

 _/I know/_ Keiji signs, silencing Kai instantly. He hadn’t planned to interrupt that time, but the full weight of Kai’s concern is almost overwhelming, and he’s not sure how he could have coped had the other man continued.

Keiji is not stupid. He knows what Kai won’t say. If it’s found out that Keiji has been told these things by a member of staff at the centre itself, it is Kai who will pay the price. Based on what Keiji has learnt of this organisation in his months of rehabilitation, it will be a high one.

It’s a hard, horrible feeling, this weight of responsibility. Keiji is not used to feeling this kind of concern for other people. Until he met Kai, he can’t remember ever knowing someone whose wellbeing he cared about at all. In the big house, the men _seemed_ to care for each other, but that was a world which Keiji only ever observed from the outside. He did his best to look after himself, and his only concerns about other people was that they noticed him as little as possible. Now, here is Kai, risking everything for him and Keiji feels…he feels _guilty_. It’s a burden he never asked for, and one he absolutely doesn’t know what to do with.

He’s gotten men killed before, after all. The thought of Kai being next fills him with dread.

 _/I know it’s not an easy life/_ he signs, when it becomes obvious that Kai is waiting for him to continue. _/They want my power, not me/ /I’m/ … /I don’t work properly/ /But there are rules to that life I can follow/ /I know that life/ /I understand it, and/ … /I don’t understand that other life you want me to have/ /I won’t miss it/ /It’s enough for me/_

Keiji can tell that Kai is unsettled by his words. It’s obvious in the way the man’s shoulders sag and his eyebrows shift, settling into the expression Keiji has heard Futakuchi refer to as his ‘sad puppy’ expression.

“You don’t have to settle for this, Akaashi-san,” he says eventually. “You’re still young. You can put if off for a little longer, if nothing else. Perhaps give the other centre a go before you commit to anything. You may find that you prefer it.”

_/No/_

Keiji has refused to do things before—Futakuchi once spent an entire month trying to convince him to read a succession of increasingly more obscure and uninteresting books purely to aid him in this respect—but disagreeing with Kai is always a challenge. He has proven himself Keiji’s strongest supporter and ally, and it chafes to disappoint him. Kai has always hoped that one day he will be able to live a ‘normal’ life.

From the lack of surprise as Keiji shakes his head, however, he must have known this whole time how unlikely that possibility really was. It’s encouraging, then, to think that all Keiji really has to do is explain _why_ he is making this choice.

 _/I’m not settling/_ he signs, feeling oddly calm about it as he finally reaches the crux of his argument. _/As a soldier I’ll be valued for my power/ /I’ll be useful, not a burden/ /And that’s not all/_

He pauses, trying to collect his thoughts. It’s taken him a lot of practice to learn to sign well enough to communicate smoothly, but he still finds himself gravitating towards short, simple sentences when he has a lot of thoughts to express.

_/Before, people wanted to use my power for hurting others/ /Or for protecting people who would hurt others/ /I want/ … /I want my power to be used for something good/ /I want to help someone worth helping/ /Soldiers saved me/ /I want to be able to do the same/_

It feels an odd admission to make, and it is, really. It’s certainly a far simplified version of the jumbled vision of his future which he holds deep in his heart. But there are no words he knows of to explain the raw _need_ inside him to do something, or to explain the constant, often ugly desire he harbours in his heart to work against his former captors at every turn. It’s only grown stronger as the months have passed, and he’s learnt more and more about the world outside which so many people take for granted. The world which was taken away from him so long ago that he barely remembers it.

Kai must know something of that feeling inside him, because although he smiles at Keiji’s words and remarks that here, at least, is a reasoning he can write down, the smile isn’t quite as broad and deep as his usual ones. He’s wary; wary of Keiji and his still unsettled emotions.

But it’s not a half-expected warning that Keiji should not seek vengeance which Kai expresses when he finally speaks again, having fallen silent for long minutes.

“You will have to be careful,” is what he says instead. “You’re picking a dangerous path. I can’t stop you, but as someone with a strong interest in your wellbeing, I certainly wouldn’t have recommended it to you.”

This, at least, brings a faint smile to Keiji’s face.

 _/People have wanted to kill me before/_ he signs, and shrugs. _/They didn’t/_

His smile deepens.

 _/They_ **_couldn’t_** _/_

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's just pretend I didn't lose track of time so badly that I got to last Friday and worried that I'd missed my fortnightly update only to realise that it had, in fact, been _three_ weeks already, shall we? Moving house is honestly the worst. Oh well. I'm mostly settled in now, although the fortnightly update schedule is going to have to stay for a little while yet. I'll just try to remember how long a fortnight actually is from now on...
> 
> UPDATE: Following the Great Tumblr Purge of '18, my blog there is no more. If you want to holler at me I can now be found on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/OlynnaWrites). Please only request access if you are over 18!


	10. Chapter 10

If there’s one thing about being in public disgrace that Koutarou hates the most, it’s— Well, he pretty much hates the whole damn thing, if he’s honest. Making out like one part of it isn’t so bad as the rest…what’s the point? It sucks all round, because even the things that _aren’t_ so terrible are still caught up right alongside the things that are, and if he weren’t in disgrace then _none_ of it would be happening, right?

If people hadn’t been so quick to decide he’s a terrible, dangerous person, maybe he’d be commanding his own missions still, instead of being limited to the grounds of the random training base in the middle of nowhere which Command picked out for him and Kuroo.

In fact, probably the only good thing about his life right now is that he and Kuroo haven’t been separated for “Stage Two”—a year spent in basic training like they’re rookies or something—and even that has a sting in the tail.

Because the thing—the thing _is_ , when the two of them are together, Kuroo can’t help being…well, _Kuroo_. He’s a pain, for sure, but he’s clever. And he’s got that edgy handsomeness thing going on which everyone always falls for, and when you stand the two of them right next to each other, people normally start getting this really obvious look on their faces.

It’s the kind of look which says: “Hey, if Kuroo had been in command on that night, maybe things wouldn’t have crashed and burned so hard.”

It sucks.

And don’t get him wrong, Koutarou loves the guy—well, not like _love_ loves, except maybe he…well…

Well generally it’s just really _complicated_ , because he and Kuroo have known each other for years, and they’re almost as much a team as _Kenma_ and Kuroo are. At least in some respects. But right now, as Koutarou overhears people gossipping about them both— _again,_ because apparently even though they’ve been here for six months already, people _still_ can’t let it go—all Koutarou really wants is to stop hearing constant comments about how clever Kuroo is, or how witty, or how handsome and cool.

How about people start sometimes gossipping that he, Koutarou, can juggle five cars for ten minutes without dropping or damaging them, and then set them all down again afterward without their alarms going off. That’s not _easy!_ It takes control—a whole lot of control, just like maintaining his large bonsai collection, or grooming small and fluffy animals, or balloon modelling, or origami, or, or…

Koutarou has lost track of the number of random things he’s learnt to do over the years to help him focus on reigning in his strength, but no one ever gives him credit for it. All they see is stupid Kuroo who is absolutely not the cool and collected person they all seem to think he is, which they’d know if they spent more time talking _to_ him instead of gossipping _about_ him.

And he’s not being fair, not really. But it’s exhausting to constantly work himself to the bone, taking the whole re-training thing seriously, and then hearing that half the base seem to have bought Command’s stupid lie about him being no good at leadership, and think he actually rushed on in to an enemy stronghold without even looking at the Intel first. Meanwhile Kuroo is his innocent, long-suffering loyal friend who got taken down with him, and there’s just enough truth in that last part that it really, _really_ stings.

“Just ignore them,” Kuroo always says because—and here’s the kicker—Kuroo knows all this too. “It’s only gossip. It doesn’t mean anything. _We_ know what happened, and Kenma’s still working on it, okay? This is just temporary.”

Koutarou had really believed him at first. Why shouldn’t he? The three of them were thrown together during their cadet days and they’ve been pretty much inseparable since, one way or another. Kuroo and Kenma have his back, just like he has theirs. But as the months have gone by, and Kenma’s turned up pretty much nothing other than vague snippets of _maybe_ halfway shady conversations…it’s getting hard to take on faith that this is all going to turn out any way other than their being permanently demoted and stranded miles away from anything actually important.

 

* * *

 

It’s nine months, two weeks, and three days after the disaster at the Yakuza stronghold—not that Koutarou is counting or anything—before Kenma gets back to them with anything even _remotely_ resembling good news.

Of course, Koutarou doesn’t actually know that at first, because obviously they’re still in the middle of their year being “re-trained”. As a result, all their phone calls and letters to the outside world are being monitored, as though they’re criminals instead of loyal soldiers who got screwed over to save someone else’s job.

But Kuroo gets a letter, anyway, and when he’s done translating the code him and Kenma have worked out using whatever kind of superhuman mental communication they have—seriously, if Koutarou didn’t already know what Kuroo’s power was, sometimes he’d swear it was reading Kenma’s mind—the two of them sit down one morning in the gym while doing weight training, and Koutarou finally gets to hear the details between sets.

He doesn’t understand all of it. Frankly, a lot of it just plain doesn’t make sense, and the code thing which Kuroo tells him about sounds really easy to make mistakes with, especially when he sees the letter itself, and all he can see is a page or two of scruffy handwriting about Kenma’s adventures in computer games, and how he’s nearly beaten some boss fight he’s been working on since forever.

The gist, though, seems to be that one or more of those old guys in Command is corrupt as _fuck_. Well, that part’s hardly news, but the difference is that now, finally, Kenma thinks he’s found a way of getting proof, which has always been the sticking point for them.

“Honestly, Kenma’s pretty much their undoing,” Kuroo says, grinning as he watches Koutarou finish his set. He helps uncouple the pure osmium weights—the only material which can come _close_ to giving Koutarou a proper workout—before continuing: “Because here’s the thing. Normally this is the sort of shit people want to avoid a paper trail on. They want to sit in a room together and _tell_ each other the details, and not write any of it down where someone could find a trace. But that’s exactly the sort of thing Kenma can hear, so if they want to get round him, they _have_ to make that paper trail. Most of it gets destroyed, sure. They’re not stupid. But now and then they get caught out. Someone screws up. And they can’t hide where they are, just what they’re saying, so Kenma knows where to look.”

There’s a look on Kuroo’s face as he talks about Kenma. It’s soft, and dreamy, and exactly what Koutarou means when he argues that Kuroo is absolutely not the cool and collected badass that everyone mistakes him for. Not that he argues much. If people cared about Kuroo as much as he and Kenma do, they’d find this stuff out for themselves.

“I still don’t get what he _found_ though,” Koutarou replies, because at least one of them’s got to have a level head about Kenma. “Like, what are we looking for?”

Kuroo sighs. The dopey expression gives way to what honestly almost manages to be a pout.

“He hasn’t found anything _yet_ ,” he says, narrowing his eyes at Koutarou like admitting this is physically painful. “But he knows how to now! The trick has always been that these guys…they sit passing a phone back and forth, tapping out messages and showing each other then deleting the words rather than sending them. Nothing’s actually stored digitally. Or they get some actual, real-life _paper_ and write their plans down, and then just burn it. You’re left with just as much trace as a conversation no one taped, and you can’t even just put a blanket of bugs anywhere they go just in case, because Kenma’s power means they know they’re being overheard already.”

Koutarou frowns, heading over to the treadmill for his cool down walk. “Well, yeah, but that’s not new, right?” he says over his shoulder. “So what changed?”

Kuroo guides him to a pair of treadmills in the centre of the room and waits for them to both get going before he speaks. Even then, his voice is low enough that Koutarou can hardly hear him over the sounds of the motors—which, to be fair, is probably the point.

“He got help. Backup. Someone who can do what he can’t.”

This takes a few minutes to sink in, and even when it does, Koutarou isn’t quite sure he can wrap his head around the idea. “Wait, _Kenma_ did that?” he says, belatedly doing a double take and tripping over his own feet. The treadmill almost throws him off before he can regain his balance.

Kuroo’s godawful hyena laugh doesn’t stop until they’re walking out of the gym together, but he’ll gladly take being laughed at again if it comes with the prospect of getting even with the assholes who screwed them all over in the first place. Justice is going to be _amazing_.

 

* * *

 

The good news is enough to lift Koutarou’s spirits for a fair while, until it becomes obvious that it’s not so much that they have a hope of getting their lives back, as that they have a hope of getting the evidence they need to argue that they should be _allowed_ to have their lives back. And that is all set to happen at some distant point way off in the future, and even Kuroo doesn’t know how far.

Week on week he can feel himself sinking again, weighed down by the gossip and the stares which surround him. Kuroo keeps him in the loop as much as he can, sure, but there’s not a lot of loop to be kept in. If Kenma’s finding stuff, it’s the sort of thing he can’t even put in a coded message just yet.

Really, the only thing which keeps him going is his training. Weights, long runs, endurance tests—he’s working himself to the bone and there is at least some peace in the exhaustion he’s left with at the end of the day. Satisfaction in the knowledge that he’s pushing his body as far as it will go, as hard as it can take.

And if there’s one good thing about all the constant supervision and gossip, it’s that _everyone else_ knows how much effort he’s putting into re-training, too. So _now_ comes a different kind of rumour—like about how, this one time, he threw an egg over a wall, punched the wall so hard it smashed into splinters, and then jumped through the hole and caught the egg on the other side without it smashing, or even cracking anywhere.

Maybe a rumour about a ‘training exercise’—it was actually just a dare between him and some of the others, but he’s happy to keep quiet about that part—is a bit of a low bar to set himself as a goal. Maybe he should be aiming higher in life than people knowing him as the party trick guy. But being a joke is better than being a threat. Going viral because he can lie on his back juggling concrete ballast blocks with his feet, all the while knitting a hat? That’s way better than going viral for allegedly threatening a poor, helpless kidnapping victim.

It’s a far cry from where he was—and farther still from where he wants to be, or where he imagined he might have gotten by now—but it’s better than nothing.

Patience being its own reward is something which was drilled into him when he was young and hyperactive, buzzing with too much energy his body could never quite burn off. He’s getting more of those lessons now, particularly as the end of their year in _official_ disgrace approaches.

No one has said where they’ll be shipped off to after it’s over yet, but he and Kuroo have been making theories. It’s obvious enough that Command aren’t interested in their services being front and centre just yet, even if they’ve had plenty of time to ‘reform’ and especially seeing as it’s not like anyone got hurt who wasn’t supposed to _anyway_.

The injustice still stings, but it’s an old wound now. A lingering ache which he can put to one side so long as he buries himself in drills and routine, flooding his brain with sensory overload from work and music so there’s no room left to stew. No room to sit and think, even at the end of each exhausting day as he collapses into bed, utterly spent.

Kuroo’s probably right that it’s not healthy, but it’s not forever, is it? It’s just until Kenma actually pulls through, or they get shunted to some other base and _maybe_ are allowed to resume active duty again. It’s only a little longer. Just a bit further. He can do this. He can last it out.

 

* * *

 

When the news comes, they don’t get much warning. That’s nothing new, though—orders have always come through in the night, and half their training is about being ready for deployment on virtually non-existent notice.

The transfer is exactly what they’ve both been waiting for, but as Koutarou starts packing up his things, he can’t help but feel oddly sad about it all. He’s…well he certainly _hasn’t_ enjoyed most of his stay out here in the hinterlands, but there have been a few good things, here and there. Consistency and familiarity count for a lot, too, and he’s about to leave all that behind now he’s resuming active duty. Even if it’s in a small hick town where they’ll probably be glorified parking attendants or something.

Kuroo’s through the roof though, because the _other_ side of things is that they’ll be closer to Kenma again—close enough that they can see him more than just once every few months if he gets enough leave to visit. It’s not as good as being in the city with him, but it’s a hell of an improvement over being right out in the middle of nowhere.

They have a lot to talk to Kenma about, too. Going off of the look on Kuroo’s face as he mentions their upcoming discussion, most of it would probably land them in even remoter parts of the country than Tsukishima if they were caught.

All in all, Koutarou would _really_ prefer it if that didn’t happen. Being shunted out to pasture once has already almost been his undoing. He’s not quite sure how he’d cope if it happened again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter was a lot harder to write than I was expecting. Coupled with a long stretch of far more seizure activity than I'd been used to for a while and a lot of other upcoming commitments...I don't want to commit to a particular update schedule just yet until my workload settles. 
> 
> I'm still aiming for fortnightly, but being realistic it may slip to every three weeks for a bit until life evens out. Update day is still Thursday though, just for the sake of _some_ consistency. 
> 
> Updated Endnote: Following the Great Tumblr Purge of '18, my blog there is no more. If you want to holler at me I can now be found on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/OlynnaWrites). Please only request access if you are over 18!


	11. Chapter 11

There are worse things than exile, as Tetsurou well knows. He’s borne witness to some of them—seen their after-effects and buried the remains of their victims. On other, marginally cheerier occasions, he’s pulled survivors of these ‘worse things’ from rubble and ruin. In fact, in the grand scheme of things he’s pretty lucky, and there’s no sense in pretending otherwise. Here and now, given that someone in Command is for whatever stupid reason out for his career or his head? All things considered he’s doing pretty darn well for himself, thank you very much.

The flip-side to this philosophical reassurance is that there are things greatly better than exile too, and on the whole it’s rather easier to keep them in mind than the negatives. Keeping the knowledge of his alternatives on the sidelines where they belong is a daily battle for Tetsurou, and it’s one which only gets harder over time, not easier.

It’s a cruel fact, too, but the bald truth about his life in exile is this: were it not for Bokuto, it wouldn’t have happened at all. He’d be commanding other people by now. Making a difference in the world instead of being stuck repeating the same old training exercises he’s been able to do in his sleep for years.

The knowledge has sat inside him the whole time they’ve been out to pasture, burning a little deeper as the weeks and months have gone by. It’s hard and harsh and cruel and—in its own way—wrong. Not untrue, but unfair. It’s not Bokuto’s fault. It was even odds on either one of them getting command for that particular mission, and who’s to say things would have turned out any differently had they been the other way round? If he’d been giving the orders instead, there’s every chance he would have set Bokuto to doing his wrecking ball impression anyway. The information about what they were walking into was wrong. The fault is with Command.

And yet. Try as he might, Tetsurou can’t quite shake the nagging thought which plagues him, night after night. He’s miles from Kenma, miles from home, and if it weren’t for that mission—the mission where he was following Bokuto’s orders—none of this would be happening. No aching homesickness. No constant fretting about which particular flavour of self-neglect Kenma has distracted himself into now. No certainty that everything he’s spent half his life working towards has just vanished into a puff of smoke.

Sometimes he hates being the logical, sensible one of the two of them. Bokuto’s doing just fine. Oh, sure, he goes down sometimes from the gossip and rumours, and he’s running himself into the ground trying to get people to like him again, but he’s tougher than that, really he is. A few bad days…even a few bad weeks aren’t going to lay him out in any permanent sense. He’s just not that sort of guy. He’s too upbeat, too cheerful. He’s the happy-go-lucky mascot of the training facility, all smiles and laughter and jokes. It’s Tetsurou who’s left thinking about the future of an evening, wracking his brain each night over how they’re going to get out of this one.

The lack of Kenma burns. It hadn’t been until they were forced completely apart that he’d stopped to consider just how much of their lives have been spent together, even accounting for the several stretches he’s spent bunked at a barracks for training. If Bokuto is the energy which helps spur him on—a motivating, almost sun-like entity he can’t help but want more of—then Kenma is water. His absence makes their exile a year-long march through desert.

It’s been twelve months of talking to thin air in the oh-so-glamorous setting of a toilet stall—not even guaranteed privacy in his shower, and definitely never given it at night in their bunkhall, shared as it is with eighteen other soldiers. A year of one-way conversations have done little to quench his unending thirst, so to speak.

Letters just aren’t enough to fill the void. He misses Kenma’s voice; misses his quiet way of watching the world; misses the carefree, unconscious way they have always understood each other so perfectly. He’s pining, hard, and even if he’s been able to convince everyone else that he’s just a naturally cool and collected brooding type, that’s only given him more time to sit and stew.

It’s pressure enough to break someone, but he can’t, and not just because he knows it won’t help. Bokuto has put his faith in him—in him and Kenma both—that they’re working towards a concrete fix. That there’s some magical piece of information out there which will catch Command out and expose them. That they’ll be restored to glory in a sea of fanfare, people turning to them to proclaim that they can’t believe how abysmally Command have treated such obvious heroes.

The notion is fantasy, pure and simple. But, well, Bokuto has always been simple that way. It’s one of his charms, although Tetsurou is pretty sure he’d rather die than admit as much.

 

* * *

 

Tetsurou doesn’t let himself think about Kenma’s plans that often. First and foremost, he doesn’t know enough of the details to really make that a satisfying endeavour in any way, and secondly, what details he does know are sensitive enough that he doesn’t want to take chances. Someone at Command’s after them, plain and simple, and what’s to say they haven’t planted a mole with a kind of telepathy power at the training camp? A stretch, perhaps, but definitely not impossible.

He’s not really sure why that fear lodges so firmly in his head—it’s something which he’d rather push to the back of his mind as simple paranoia—but as their year rolls by it surfaces time and again, only ever growing stronger despite the complete absence of anything which would suggest they’re actually anything other than a PR casualty.

It doesn’t help that Kenma won’t tell him everything he’s found out. No doubt that’s mostly because he can’t—with the two of them separated there’s no way to communicate securely except in code, and Tetsurou isn’t about to take any chances requesting details. Command are being thorough enough with their punitive response to the yakuza debacle, and it’s not as though any of them particularly know what they did wrong.

But that’s the thing which really sets him on edge. It can’t just be paranoia on his part. There has to be more to this than their causing a scene which could easily have been covered up. It’s not like Command don’t have the resources.

Under these circumstances, if he had the power he would keep Kenma as far away from the lot of them as possible. That he can’t is yet another burden he carries, day after day.

 

* * *

 

The weight lifts unexpectedly, and that’s enough to almost set him off-balance. Reassignment orders arrive in the night—it’s something of a sadistic tradition which Command set going in the old days before powers were pretty common, and those who possessed them had to cover a far wider and heavier workload. Tetsurou doesn’t really see the point in keeping it going now that there are more powered soldiers, but apparently having extra abilities than regular humans means they can automatically function without a proper night’s sleep. And, sure, why not allow the supercharged individuals to operate without a medically recommended amount of rest. It’s not like something could go horrifically and tragically wrong with that plan, not at all…

Paranoia is leading his thoughts again, most likely. Since when has Command been setting things up for the powered soldiers to fall? They were the ones who founded the unit; started the whole idea of putting individuals with powers through long, intensive training to ensure that they were well-regulated and in control of their abilities no matter what.

Command have done more for the positive public reception of powered individuals than any other body in history. If it hadn’t been for them, who knows what would have happened when powers started getting more common, and the ratio of normal humans started to drop off with increasing speed? There might have been—hell, would have been—a witch-hunt.

Tetsurou badly wants to see Kenma again, because honestly it’s Kenma who normally dismisses his anxieties when he gets like this. There’s nothing quite like a dispassionate: “You’re being stupid, Kuro,” to level him out when it gets too much. A year of keeping this stuff to himself and he’s starting to feel jittery and on-edge. It’s not like he can confide in Bokuto—he’d just take him at his word and blow the irrational worries up into genuine fears. With no safe outlet, Tetsurou’s left bottling every worry and irrational thought, and it’s been driving him towards a self-destruct.

But the move, while putting them a lot closer to headquarters, isn’t an instant fix. They’ll be able to do the drive in a couple of hours, meaning they’ll actually be able to go home at the weekends, but first they have to get through their orientation week: more pointless rounds of “training” in their new duties; mandatory tours to get them familiar with the layout of the base; lectures about being on their best behaviour due to the somewhat tentative relationship with the locals in the town they’ve been designated to protect thanks to previous ‘incidents’ with powered soldiers… It’s like they’ve been set up to fall down before they can start.

The captain in charge of the unit doesn’t explain what the nature of the ‘incidents’ are, but going by the looks on some of the other soldiers’ faces, it won’t be long before they find out. They’re watched by wary expressions every step of the way from the armoured vehicle to the captain’s office, and for the entirety of their tour of the base. They’re watched while they eat in silence in the mess hall, and while they’re escorted off the facility for their first tour of the town. Different faces, rotated by the patrol rota, watch them when they return.

It’s not until they’re dismissed for their first night to their quarters that the silence breaks. Bokuto’s been teetering on the edge all day, and it’s oddly, unexpectedly relaxing when he collapses onto Tetsurou’s shoulder, whining that everyone already hates them, that it sucks, that some kid in the town stared at them like they were kicking puppies as they walked past and it’s all pointless and they should just quit.

“Hey, don’t get like that,” Tetsurou says, because he knows this mood. It’s long overdue really, and with hindsight, he can identify what were the signs of it building throughout the day. Granted, it’s been a fair while since Bokuto self-destructed like this, but that should have made him more alert, not less. He steers the idiot onto his bunk and thumps his shoulder gently, hoping to knock him out of it. If that doesn’t work he’s going to have to put up with the whining until Bokuto eventually falls asleep, and the day has been long enough already.

“But they hate us Kuroo, so why even bother? We should just quit and go find a quiet mountain and stay there, like Kenma always says. I ruined everything and—”

“Oi!” Tetsurou snaps, kicking Bokuto’s shin hard enough that the other man actually flinches. “None of this. Kenma’s working, remember? He’s not packing up for some mountain. There’s—there’s no wifi there, for one, and you know he won’t leave unless he has his video games, right?”

It’s odds on that Bokuto won’t get the hint, but they certainly haven’t been here long enough that Tetsurou feels safe talking openly about Kenma’s actual motivation.

He sighs, sitting down next to Bokuto on the bed and draping an arm across his slumped shoulders, adding: “Besides, you didn’t mess up. People here just heard the bad rumours first. I give it a week tops before you’ve won every snot-nosed little brat in this town round to thinking you’re some sort of fun dispenser. Half the grannies will have adopted you in a month, at least.”

Bokuto snorts, or at least it halfway sounds like he does, because Tetsurou sure as hell isn’t the kind of guy to laugh at his own jokes and there’s no one else in the room.

That’s what he thinks for the first half second, at least. Then Bokuto gives him a really weird look and the pieces slot together and suddenly Tetsurou is simultaneously screeching ‘I told you so!’s to himself and readying himself for a fight because there is absolutely someone else in the room with them.

A second after the snort of laughter they’re both on their feet and Bokuto has his fists up, all signs of his breakdown lost amid an air of casual badassery which people really ought to take the time to appreciate more often. Tetsurou’s making a note of it to himself even as he utters the most clichéd words of all time by demanding to know who the interloper is.

There’s movement in the corner of the room a moment before a man with dirty blond hair, narrow eyes, and a shit-eating grin fades into view. His hands are raised in a gesture of surrender, and he looks utterly unapologetic as he shrugs and says:

“Can’t blame a guy for trying, right?”

“Depends what you’re about to ‘try’, I’d say,” Bokuto snaps, and Tetsurou can’t help but notice that he’s shifted to stand in such a way that he’s between blondie and Tetsurou himself, hands raised and almost clenched into fists. God, he’s adorable. “What were you gonna pull, eh?”

Blondie’s face crumples into the sort of expression Tetsurou is more used to seeing when he explains his letters from Kenma to Bokuto.

“What was I—shit man, you two just transferred to this unit. What did you think I was doing?”

“Well that’s what we’d like to find out, as it happens,” Tetsurou remarks, stepping over and leaning on Bokuto’s shoulder. “Call us paranoid but we tend to get a bit suspicious of people who chameleon themselves in our room when we’re about to bunk down for the night.”

“Oh come on, like you’d haze any other way if you had the chance to do this,” Blondie moans.

Tetsurou feels Bokuto relax beneath him even as he himself sighs with relief.

“Oh, hazing, Shit man, you shoulda said!” Bokuto exclaims, stepping across the room and thumping Blondie’s upper arm.

“Sorry what?”

“You not know who we are or something, blondie?” Tetsurou asks, standing up straight. “We’ve kinda pissed off half the brass, so ‘scuze us for being a little wary about unexpected visitors dropping in on our personal quarters.”

“Who you…oh shit!” Blondie says, grin returning in full force. “You know, I totally forgot your names after that whole rehab deal. Figured you’d be packed off to some mire in the middle of nowhere for the rest of time itself.”

“Not quite,” Tetsurou says, folding his arms. “Just the last year. So, you weren’t here to spy on us?”

Blondie has the decency to look a little embarrassed. “It’s hazing, man! I can’t tell you what the plan was!” He looks away and shakes his head a little. “I was gonna look away while you got changed though.”

“So reassuring,” Tetsurou replies, rolling his eyes. Still, against his better judgement he can’t help but relax. If the soldiers here were planning just regular hazing—if they haven’t even all realised who was being sent to join them—perhaps they’re not being watched quite so closely as he’d thought.

And if he and Bokuto aren’t being watched, then there’s really no reason to suspect that anyone’s onto Kenma and his new friend, either.

…Perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, it's been a while! Fear not, I haven't lost interest, I've just been swamped by endless real life drama. 
> 
> This chapter sorta got away from me, too. It was originally meant to cover more time, but oh well. We'll get there. 
> 
> Updated Endnote: Following the Great Tumblr Purge of '18, my blog there is no more. If you want to holler at me I can now be found on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/OlynnaWrites). Please only request access if you are over 18!


	12. Chapter 12

Change comes.

It isn’t easy, but Keiji has long since accepted that very little about his life ever is or will be. Still, the surreality of his situation is an amusing novelty at first: modest as his life in the rehabilitation centre has been, he has accumulated belongings of his _own_ to pack, and people to say goodbye to.

In his final week he’s cornered by Futakuchi and given firm instructions that he’s to write on occasion—not because Futakuchi cares or is going to _miss_ him of course, perish the thought, but so that the letters can be shoved in Yahaba’s smug face as further evidence of Keiji’s unanticipated success. Keiji’s almost flippant: _/If you insist/_ earns him a smile as broad as he’s ever seen on the other man’s face. They’ve grown to know and understand each other quite well over the last year. Keiji will miss him.

Kai makes no such request for updates on his new life, but Keiji feels an unanticipated certainty that he will await the letters as eagerly as Futakuchi. Against his expectations, the people around him at the centre have become… _important_.

Keiji isn’t stupid. He is aware that most people, seeing their closeness and camaraderie, would think of them as friends, but Kai has always stressed that friendships should derive from natural relationships, not professional ones. That it is important for Keiji to forge his _own_ friendships with people of his choosing, and not simply those available to him. There’s a solid logic to that, but now their professional relationships are ending. He can’t help but hope that something will continue, but without the framework of therapist and patient, what does that leave them? Acquaintances?

‘Friends’ sounds a strong word under the circumstances, even as ‘acquaintances’ falls woefully short. The reality is somewhere halfway between the two, but Keiji can’t be sure if he’s missing the word because he hasn’t encountered it yet, or whether it simply doesn’t exist.

It’s a facet of his life he has learnt to deal with, though. The piecemeal nature of his renewed education is such that he never knows when he will be confronted by a gap in his knowledge until it hits him.

Moving to the military training facility turns out to be a perfect example of this. He has little difficulty in packing his clothes—he used to be responsible for laundering and folding the garments worn by an entire household, after all, and they were _not_ forgiving of mistakes. Similarly, he can wake at dawn and have his sleeping quarters immaculate within minutes, a habit he’s never managed to shake.

Throughout his initial meeting with the commander of the training facility, he feels quietly confident that he can complete every task they require of him with relatively little difficulty. But he trips before even having a hope of proving this, when at the end of his meeting the commander of the training facility sternly informs him that he must _salute_ to acknowledge orders.

 _/What is?/_ Keiji signs, bewildered. _/I don’t understand word/_

“Gods, _this_ is what they send me?” the officer snaps, staring straight past Keiji at the room’s other occupant: a tall, solemn man who wears what Keiji recognises from his research as a sergeant’s stripes. “What am I supposed to do with him? Bad enough he can’t _speak_ , but you’re telling me he can’t even follow basic orders? I don’t understand that bedamned hand gabble. Get me a translator in here.”

Keiji sticks his features in place to hide his dismay. Did this man not _read_ the handover document which Kai sent ahead of him? Does he not understand who Keiji is? If he can’t speak sign language, why hasn’t there been a translator present this whole time?

Belatedly, Keiji realises that he’s become over-accustomed to everyone around him knowing who he is. He’s been spoilt by the care he’s received, and taken for granted that anyone he encounters will have at least a passing understanding of sign language, even if it was only ever a handful of staff who learned more than the basics.

Suddenly, Kai’s warning starts to make more sense.

Keiji stands in place, miserable as the sergeant rushes to find someone who understands him. He doesn’t dare risk moving so that he can fetch the notepad and pen he always carries out of his pocket. The commander of the training camp—an ageing, wizened-looking man named Colonel Washijou—sits at his desk and scowls at him over his paperwork before shaking his head.

 _“Damn stupid idea,”_ the man mutters, and Keiji is left to wonder if that was intended to be too quiet for him to hear, loud enough that he _would_ hear it, or whether the man has simply forgotten that Keiji is only mute, not deaf.

_Perhaps he doesn’t care._

The translator takes an apparent age to arrive. Keiji remains motionless, sticking himself in place when his legs begin to ache. It’s been well over a year since he’s been forced to stand still for this long. In fact, the last time had been…had been...

 

* * *

 

Keiji doesn’t cry. In his entire life, he can remember perhaps two or three occasions which brought him to tears, the most recent being the casual way Kai offered him the sky after years trapped inside.

And so, he does not cry as he stands in the colonel’s office, waiting for someone who can understand him while the world threatens to become the Master’s house once more, and the harsh voices of the dead echo old threats in his ears. He does not cry as a tall, imposing man marches into the room behind the sergeant, and scowls down at him. He does not cry as the colonel repeats his entire speech, gesturing impatiently for the scowling man to translate. He does not cry as he haltingly signs his own reply: that he understands everything except that one mystery word, which he can only finger spell.

Nor does he cry that it is such a simple thing to get wrong. That listening to the explanation takes far longer than connecting the word he has never heard aloud with the written characters from a book, and learning how to salute to the colonel’s satisfaction. That the colonel insults Kai and everyone else at the rehabilitation centre for not giving him ‘a proper education’.

Keiji stays silent and still save for performing the hateful salute, then follows the sergeant and scowling man to the training barracks. There, he learns he will not have his own room any more, but will occupy a bed at the end of a long dormitory.

“We arranged this particular bed for you to accommodate your transition,” the sergeant says smoothly, as though he has done Keiji a great service by his actions.

But he watches attentively as Keiji politely signs _/Thank you/_ , and after the scowling man translates, requests to see the sign for ‘good evening’.

 _/Good evening/_ Keiji dutifully signs, then as the sergeant attempts to mirror the gesture adds: _/But there is no need/ /I can understand/_

To his surprise, the scowling man replies rather than translate, the corner of his mouth quirking into an unexpected smile as he signs: _/Ushijima will learn anyway/ /He considers it his duty, and I can’t be here all the time to translate/ /He’ll learn enough to understand you/_ He pauses a moment and adds: _/Off the record, he’s as good a man as Colonel Washijou is bad/_

Keiji blinks, but doesn’t show any other sign he’s understood the scowling man. It reeks of trickery and deceit. A test. If he criticises the Colonel as well, or acknowledges that the man’s behaviour was upsetting to him, it will likely lead to further problems, exactly as Kai warned him. People see him as a tool first, after all. He’s here because his _power_ is useful, not because he himself is.

He must be careful. He must be careful and he must learn the rules, and never ever show distress, because that is a weakness.

The scowling man and Sergeant Ushijima leave him to unpack after a few minutes of stilted attempts at communication. Keiji does not cry. Not as he shoves his suitcase under his bed—there’s no drawer to unpack into—not as he sits cross-legged on his bed and stares at the wall, not as nine other men file into the room and gather round his bed with questions he cannot answer. He sits still and resolute, and patiently repeats: _/I’m sorry, I’m mute/_ until they get the hint and leave him alone, bustling over each other in a loud and bawdy mess as they rush to the showers.

And yet when he wakes in the morning, after a night of patchy sleep snatched amid the foreign sounds of other people breathing and muttering to each other, he finds his pillow stained with tears he does not recall shedding.

 

* * *

 

It is difficult, becoming a soldier. Keiji has known this from the beginning of his plan, well ahead of Kai’s detailed warning. But no amount of mental preparations could have made him ready for the reality he is presented with.

There’s just no _space_. Every moment of every day there are _people_ , although after the first day he finds himself in a small bubble of room. There’s no need to describe his power to any of his new training unit. They learn the hard way what happens to those who attempt to push or jostle him.

But that bubble, constant as it might be, is just an imaginary boundary. There’s nothing to stop the whispers and muttering. Nothing to stop the constant sounds of other voices, breathing and snoring at night, and constantly discussing things with each other during the day. It’s like he’s moved permanently to the canteen at the rehabilitation centre, and although in and of itself Keiji doesn’t find it unpleasant, the lack of relief is exhausting. Even…even _before_ , he had solitude at night.

How do the other men sleep so soundly? How do they relax when other people are so close? Each night, Keiji lies awake as fatigue drags at his limbs and eyes, unable to switch off the tension anchoring him in wakefulness. At any moment one of them could shout, or stir, and what if they found him asleep? What if they walked over to him as he lay unguarded and vulnerable? Rest is fitful and brief, and far shorter than the long hours he lies awake, memorising the grain of the wood on the wall beside him, or counting the scattering of stars visible through his small window.

 

* * *

 

It takes two weeks.

Two weeks of wary treatment following the initially keen introductions his new unit made, each jostling the others to announce their names and eagerly ask Keiji questions for him to answer via the notebook and pen. Two weeks of some asking eagerly how to sign basic words and phrases, while others laugh and jeer every time he does not understand a command. Two weeks in which every march and drill gets harder and harder, as the bags beneath his eyes grow into permanent shadows.

The scowling man—Keiji has not seen him in days and cannot recall ever being told his name—appears in the mess hall at breakfast, and clears his throat. Keiji snaps to attention, back straight, hands rigidly in front of him after dropping his chopsticks beside his bowl with a clatter. He waits a long, awful moment for the barked order which does not come.

The scowling man clears his throat again. Keiji risks a look.

 _/Sergeant Ushijima wishes to speak to you in private/_ the man signs, his expression neutral. _/I will be present to translate/ /It is not a disciplinary meeting, and I thought it would offer more privacy to deliver the message this way/_

 _/Of course/_ Keiji replies, and hesitates. _/I/ … /These things must be returned for cleaning/_

 _/Please, finish eating first/_ the scowing man says, and his expression is sincere but it’s far too late for that.

Keiji shakes his head, his appetite long since gone. _/I am done/_

He returns his tray for cleaning without shaking so hard that the utensils clatter, and follows the scowling man to a small office he has never seen before. Sergeant Ushijima waits inside, seated at a broad desk.

“Good morning, Private Akaashi,” he says, nodding. “Please, feel free to sit.”

The chair is opposite the desk, right in the centre of the room. Keiji doesn’t know if it’s a test or trap, but if they think he will fail to follow rules they are mistaken. If they think sitting with his back to the better part of the room makes him vulnerable they are wrong.

He sits, back straight and face impassive as he regards the man in front of him. The scowling man follows him into the room and stands to one side of the desk, clearly positioning himself midway between Keiji and Sergeant Ushijima.

“I will be brief,” Ushijima says, clasping his hands together. “I have been keeping an eye on your progress, and have noticed a steady deterioration in both your reaction times and athletic capabilities over the last few days. This facility requires all recruits to be in peak physical condition.”

Keiji’s power flares, locking himself in place. The moment he stills Ushijima pauses in his speech, and frowns. It’s an expression of confusion rather than anger, but it’s subtle, like everything else about this man. Keiji waits, prepared for the worst.

“Private, I have concerns about your health,” Ushijima says, after a long, awkward silence. “You display excellent discipline and motivation despite this deterioration, but you will not complete your training if this continues or fails to improve. It is my belief that these issues are best tackled early, before they grow into larger problems. I am also mindful of your background, and that you passed your initial medical exam with flying colours. I wish to ascertain if there is… a different problem interfering with your training.”

Keiji steels himself. He’s not being dismissed? It’s more than he’d hoped for with the opening of the sergeant’s speech. This is still salvageable then.

 _/I’m fine/_ he signs, with barely a tremor. _/I will work harder/_

The muttered translation from the scowling man is voiced with enough scepticism that Keiji feels his insides knot, but he holds his head level, staring past the sergeant at the wall.

Ushijima shakes his head. “That is clearly untrue, Private,” he says. “I do not believe working harder will resolve the problem. Observing you now, I note that you display symptoms of fatigue or sleep deprivation. If this is the case, increasing your workload will have purely negative effects. A person is only so capable as the foundation they build from. Without adequate rest it is impossible for your body to operate at its true ability.”

Keiji waits, but as the silence stretches out he realises Ushijima is waiting for a reply. _/I understand/_ he signs, though understanding will not change anything.

His gestures are met with a sigh. “Private,” Ushijima says, and then pauses. “ _Akaashi_ , if that term of address is more familiar. As mentioned, I am familiar with your background. If this is a difficulty stemming from your transition, I would appreciate knowing, so that I can make adjustments. If the members of your unit are causing difficulties I can have you reassigned elsewhere.”

Keiji stares at him. _/I don’t understand/_

Ushijima barely waits for the translation before nodding. “You are not sleeping. If there is a member or members of your unit causing your sleep to be disrupted I will discipline those responsible, or assign you to a unit more understanding of your needs. I have no wish to waste time training those who are unable or unwilling to keep up, but your record from the rehabilitation centre confirms that you show considerable potential. It would be wasteful to allow you to fail over something so easily rectified, and in order to do so you must inform me of the problem first.”

 _/It’s not someone in the unit/_ Keiji quickly signs. The last thing he wants is to get anyone else in trouble.

Finding the courage to explain the _actual_ problem is a lot harder. But he’s _useful_. The sergeant across from him knows so. Has said it plainly and simply. He knows it from bitter experience, too—his power is one that people have fought and killed over. It is unlikely that he will be overly penalised for being honest. What’s the worst they can do? Nothing that he hasn’t endured before, surely.

 _/Too many people sleep in that room/_ he manages at last. _/_ _Noise, there’s always noise/ … /I feel—it’s not safe/ … /My body won’t sleep/ … /Waiting for orders or danger always/_

There’s a long silence after the scowling man translates. Far longer than any other Keiji has endured since his disastrous meeting with Colonel Washijou. Long before Ushijima nods, Keiji is expecting to be turned out or punished for his outspokenness.

“It is a problem you must overcome,” Ushijima says at last. “You cannot be afforded different sleeping quarters. To train as a soldier you must overcome the same hurdles as any other recruit. In a field mission, you will need to be capable of sleep under far more trying conditions.”

There’s a pause in which Keiji does not breathe, chest stuck tight with power.

“But,” Ushijima continues at last, frowning as he stares down at the paperwork in front of him, “The current obstacle is time. Ordinarily you would be required to complete basic training in a twelve week period. I will make a recommendation that this be extended indefinitely until you are capable of passing every requirement. When the current training window is complete, if you do not meet the standard you will remain in training with a new unit, until you overcome this aversion to sleeping around other people. I will request that you attend some therapy sessions in the interim also. This should be sufficient to overcome the problem. You are dismissed.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, it feels really good to have a chapter go out on time, even if it's on the slower fortnightly schedule. I'm hesitant (as ever) to make promises about future updates - particularly as the summer holidays start soon and I'm a single parent - but my goal is to keep to it for this fic. 
> 
> I'd love to work towards weekly updates (we've still got a fair whack of story to go), but while I'm hoping the near future will bring a touch more stability, there are other, hopefully permanent committments I have coming up which will have to take priority, and I can't reassess until that's all settled. We'll see. 
> 
> In the meantime, if you want to yell at me, feel free to do so in a comment or over on my [REDACTED] - I'm going to try and be a bit better about replying to things now that the worst of the life-upheavals seem to be almost over!
> 
> **Update: Following the Great Tumblr Purge of '18, my blog there is no more. If you want to holler at me I can now be found on[Twitter](https://twitter.com/OlynnaWrites). Please only request access if you are over 18!**


	13. Chapter 13

There is a thing which Keiji learns about the military and it is this: for an organisation built on routine and order, it is surprising just how much chaos is allowed to persist among the lower ranks, either when the backs of their superiors are turned or because they simply do not care enough to put a stop to it.   
  
Perhaps, he ponders on the long, wakeful nights in his bed, it is because ‘his’ unit are those with powers—inherently more difficult to call to order and to train. Putting their various strengths to their best uses calls for divergent tactics. The man who can run with inhuman speed trains in different ways to the one who can shrink himself down to fit through impossible gaps, and there are few methods of discipline which will work on both.   
  
The scowling man—Keiji finally overhears someone calling the man ‘Washio’ after several agonising weeks of not knowing how to address him—explains that the training camp really only exists to instill an ages-old concept of military discipline into them, and ensure a baseline level of fitness. Beyond that, Command understands well that the nature of powers is such that training is usually best tailored to the individual, to push them to their limits and gain the maximum use out of their abilities. This more specialised training takes place at additional bases, which they are sorted into based on local needs.   
  
“That’s why I’m here,” he admits a few months in, as he and Keiji sit in the mess hall with their food.   
  
The twelve weeks has just ended, and it’s quiet and bare without the rowdy recruits cluttering tables and chatting animatedly with each other. Their replacements won’t arrive for a day or so yet, and Keiji feels oddly lost with their absence. A loose end, flapping in the breeze. Colonel Washijou still has him complete the full measure of his fitness tests, but it’s lonely and strange. There have always been people, even—even _before_ , he would spend his days attempting to avoid men who pushed and jostled with each other, then step gingerly around their drunken, sleeping bodies at night.   
  
Washio had seemed to notice Keiji’s unease, which led to the suggestion that they eat together in the otherwise empty mess hall. It’s strange for Keiji to sit and talk to someone still so unfamiliar to him. Stranger still to know that he can communicate just as well in return.  
  
“I’m not a trainee, as you might have noticed,” Washio goes on. “But now and then we get recruits whose powers affect their speech, so I was assigned to the base as a translator. The Colonel doesn’t much like it, but his way of thinking is old-fashioned. He grew up with powers being…much rarer. Bases like this didn’t exist when he signed up, as he’ll tell anyone who gets a chance.”  
  
 _/He doesn’t like powers/_ Keiji signs, raising his eyebrows to suggest at the question in his words.  
  
Washio smiles grimly. He glances over at the servers before laying his chopsticks down beside his bowl. _/He hates them/ /He has no power himself, so he resents those of you who do/_  
  
Keiji blinks. There’s an implication in Washio’s words, signed with what he has come to recognise as the stern man’s good humour, which he can’t recall anyone else ever making about themselves.  
  
 _/You have no power/_ he signs, unable to help himself stare.   
  
At this, Washio actually laughs. “Not a bit,” he says, and his grin is alarming enough that Keiji would not disagree even if he didn’t believe him. “I don’t feel like I’m missing anything either, mind. Much simpler to just be myself.”  
  
Keiji flinches, startling a curse out of the other man.  
  
“I’m sorry, Akaashi,” he says. “That…I should have known better.”  
  
Keiji shakes his head, both to shake off bad thoughts and to reassure Washio. _/You’re right/_ he signs, swallowing uncomfortably around a sudden lump in his throat. He does his best to smile, and the words flow through his hands so much easier than he could have imagined as he adds: _/It’s because of my power, what happened/ /It’s because of my power I can’t talk/ /They are not always good to have/_  
  
Later, as he returns to the empty dormitory, he realises that it’s the first time he has ever been able to express that thought to another person so clearly. It’s an odd thought, and cycles around his head as he sits on his bunk and marvels at the quiet surrounding him. Imagining how he might have been without his power is almost impossible at this point—he remembers lonely nights wishing for his old life, but he has long since lost the ability to picture what it might have looked like.  
  
The old want has never quite disappeared. It most likely never will. Keiji is a realist, and practical, and it makes sense that he would want to have—or have _had_ —those things which so many others take for granted. But what he has now is far better than the before which was his reality.   
  
Just as he said to Kai those months before: it’s enough.

 

* * *

  
  
The new recruits arrive the following morning, loud and eager, and find Keiji sitting on his bed with a book, legs crossed beneath him.  
  
“Hey how come you weren’t at roll call?” one of them asks, a short man with an eager expression on his face. His brown hair is trimmed to little more than stubble at the sides, but left slightly longer on the top of his head. “Does the Colonel know you’re here?”  
  
Keiji looks up at the crowd of men and women, and nods impassively. He has already run five miles, and returned to make the most of empty showers. There is nothing the Colonel wishes to say to him.  
  
“Oi, what gives with the silent treatment? You think you’re better than us or something?” the man goes on, dumping his bag down beside the bed next to Keiji’s. “What’s your name?”  
  
 _/Akaashi Keiji/ /But you can’t understand sign so it doesn’t matter/_ Keiji replies. He reaches down for his notebook, feeling oddly embarrassed for his outburst even though the chances anyone in the room understood it for what it was are minuscule. Even as he notes that speaking his mind is what Kai would have called ‘progress’, a part of him can’t help but anticipate repercussions for his tone.  
  
His instincts are correct, too, because while it is evident that none of the new recruits understand sign, they are not so stupid as to not understand what sign language is.   
  
“So, what’s he’s deaf or something?” another man asks, disdain evident in his voice.  
  
The first man shakes his head, frowning. “Nah, he looked up when I started talking. Oi, silent-san, what are you doing here? We all had to pass physicals to get in, what gives?”  
  
“Yeah,” the second man drawls, snorting. “Whatever happened to the Colonel’s speech about ‘cohesion and teamwork’? How are we meant to work with a guy who can’t even speak? This is the military, not a charity case.”  
  
Keiji narrows his eyes. The first man’s expression is one of more honest confusion, even as the second man’s holds the same promise of cruelty that he knows so well. The rest of the new recruits seem to be falling into camps somewhere between the two.   
  
_Ah_ , he thinks, dispassionately. _This is where they try to break me so I leave._  
  
He’s been waiting for this. The first unit he trained with accepted him well enough, but he arrived _after_ them, with Sergeant Ushijima having made preparations in advance. They learnt quickly enough not to mess with him, too. News like his power spreads fast but these recruits are too fresh for _any_ gossip, and apparently the Colonel has seen fit not to even mention his existence. No doubt it’s another of his attempts to make Keiji leave, as he has not yet reached the fitness standards to move on.   
  
Twelve weeks has taught Keiji much about the Colonel and his patience— or rather, its absence. The man has set constant obstacles in Keiji’s path, but so far none have much hindered him. Even the constant commentary about Keiji’s lack of physical fitness cannot hold him back forever. This man does not understand Keiji, or wish to, but he does not scare him. Keiji has endured far worse, and survived. Still, the regular letters to Futakuchi have greater meaning now that he fully appreciates the notion of spite as a motivating force.   
  
The group watching him spot the notebook as Keiji opens it to a fresh page.   
  
“What, so we’re gonna be passing notes like school-kids?” the second man says, snorting. “You gotta be _kidding_ me.”  
  
The words sting, a little. Not least because they refer to a childhood he was denied. Keiji has heard far worse before though, so he does not react to the taunting. They will either understand or they will not, but he has worked hard to be here and will work harder still to leave, and it will _not_ be to return to the rehabilitation centre.  
  
 _~I speak sign language~_ he writes, in carefully neat kanji, keeping his expression level. _~You are welcome to learn it~_  
  
The first man snickers at this, face lighting up with what could be genuine amusement. If not, it is a good impression of it. Most likely he will learn basic phrases the way Keiji’s former training companions did, or at the least will not cause difficulty. Keiji focuses instead on the second man, who bristles and scowls, raising his shoulders and drawing himself up in what is most likely intended to be an intimidating fashion.   
  
“You think you’re some kind of _smartass?_ ” he asks, dumping his bag down and marching forward.  
  
The rest of the recruits draw closer as well, and the anticipation is as plain on their face as the anger is on the man doubtless looking to provoke conflict.   
  
Keiji looks past the crowd to the door, but no one arrives to diffuse the situation. A part of him idly wonders if the Colonel was hoping for this sort of encounter. Surely it would have made sense for at least Washio to be present in order to translate for the newcomers, but his absence implies other orders. Perhaps the Colonel hopes that he will be demoralised by being put at such a disadvantage.  
  
“Hey, I’m talking to you! What, you think you’re better than us or something? Don’t have to show up on time, don’t have to pass a physical—I mean _look_ at this guy!” the second man cries, turning to the others for backup. Some seem uneasy, but there are nods of agreement.   
  
Keiji cannot deny that his physical fitness is lower than it ought to be. It is the limiting factor that has held him back—a year in rehabilitation has done much to improve his strength, but athletic he cannot yet claim to be. It’s as Kai has said, though. He cannot rush gaining strength if he wishes to do so in a healthy and sustainable way.   
  
It remains highly unlikely that the man confronting him will care about any of this. Keiji is all too familiar with the expression on his face and in his body language. He desires power and authority, and will not be content until he has established himself as the superior of them.  
  
 _A bully,_ Keiji thinks, pressing his lips tightly together. Yes, he knows the type.  
  
 _~I am not—_ he starts to write, but the notebook is pulled roughly from his hands. For a brief moment Keiji’s power flares, holding it back, but he lets it go, calculating his options as the first man to confront him pushes forward:  
  
“Hey, come on now, don’t be an ass. He _needs_ that,” the man says, reaching for it.  
  
“What, you reckon he’s gonna have time to pass notes in the middle of a battle too?” the bully replies, sneering as he turns to the rest of the recruits. “He’s a fucking liability, and I’m not gonna be saddled with this shit.”  
  
Keiji sighs, and tucks his book beneath his pillow. He slips off the far side of the bed to the recruits and pulls a sheet of writing paper from his suitcase.  
  
 _~How do you wish me to prove myself~_ he writes quickly, wishing there were at least one person in the room who could translate for him, or even that he had his tablet for speed.  
  
As expected, the bully snorts when he turns back and sees Keiji’s message.  
  
“Right that’s _it_ ,” he roars, throwing the notebook to the floor and stalking over. “You think you can piss about like that like this is all some stinking joke? We’re here to be fucking _soldiers_ , not whining little secretaries! You wanna stand out there with us, you gotta have some _backbone!_ ”  
  
Keiji considers raising a hand to defend himself as the man draws back his arm, fingers curling into a fist. Considers stepping back and allowing him to miss, or hit the wall, or give the others time to intervene. He discards each plan in turn, certain that they will not solve the issue.  
  
The decision is made by the time the fist swings toward his face. Keiji does not flinch as it flies forward, maintaining eye contact. His sole concession is a reflexive blink as the first knuckle connects with his cheekbone—and stops dead.  
  
“Holy _shit!_ ” one of the other recruits cries, sounding delighted.   
  
Keiji takes a step away from the frozen fist and its owner, who tugs at the stuck hand in vain. Taking advantage of the distraction, he steps past his furious would-be attacker to collect his notebook, observing coolly the way everyone else backs up to give him space.  
  
He turns to a clean page, and writes a short note which he tears out and holds up in front of his would-be attacker:  
  
 _~My name is Akaashi Keiji. I am mute. Not cowardly, not useless, and I am here to be a soldier too.~_  
  
Reaching out with his index finger extended, he taps the knuckle and withdraws his power. The man stumbles back, staring at him with wide eyes as the other recruits laugh and jeer.  
  
It’s a temporary victory. Keiji can tell as much from the man’s eyes, and there is also the fact that bullies do not like humiliation. But Keiji is strong, and in this moment at least Keiji is _confident_. He will not be beaten down by a mere bully. 

 

* * *

  
  
The bully’s name turns out to be Hashimoto, a fact Keiji learns as the rest of the new recruits call out in jest following their stand-off. The first man to confront him steps forward as Hashimoto stalks away, and introduces himself as Komi Haruki.  
  
“And hey,” he adds, looking rather sheepish, “I just wanna say, I’m sorry about all…this. I honestly had no idea he was gonna launch off on you when I started talking. Laying into you because you can’t talk? Not on. I don’t go in for that kinda attitude at all.”  
  
The conversation rapidly becomes stilted and awkward, but there’s a swift intervention in the form of Colonel Washijou himself, belatedly arriving on the scene and demanding to know what is going on.  
  
He follows the recruits as they all turn to look at Keiji, and his expression sours instantly.  
  
“I might have _known_ you’d be causing trouble again, recruit,” he snaps.   
  
There’s a certain inevitability to what comes next. It goes without question that the colonel would favour anyone who opposes Keiji’s presence at the training facility, but the fact is compounded by Hashimoto’s natural athleticism and strength.   
  
In theory the training sessions should be familiar to Keiji as he has done the entire twelve week induction before, but Colonel Washijou has a mean streak a mile wide, and with Hashimoto’s power being one which makes him seemingly tireless and strong, the opportunity is apparently too good to pass up.   
  
Marches are faster, obstacle courses set with higher walls and tighter gaps to squeeze through. Keiji isn’t entirely certain who is responsible for the amendments to the obstacle course—there’s no way that the wall could possibly have gained almost a metre in hight from one day to the next without someone’s power being used—but the glint in Hashimoto’s eye as he lines up for his first attempt is highly suspicious.   
  
This is for him, he realises. A test for him to fail. The recruits in front of him groan at the size of the wall but have nothing to compare it to. And while their times are slower than those of the previous group, they tackle thee wall without complaint. Those who fail to scale it are given a contemptuous sniff by Washijou, but no other penalty.  
  
He is aware that he is expected to fail as well. Despite his weeks of training, despite the miles of running he has done, the muscles in his arms have lagged behind his legs. Pulling himself over the wall is something he had consistently struggled with even before the height was changed. As it is now, it seems utterly insurmountable.  
  
Or it would be, if Keiji had not kept tricks in reserve.   
  
He has hesitated to use his power overmuch in training, aware that the purpose of the exercises is to develop his physical strength alone. There’s little point cheating himself when he could be getting stronger, even in such few places as his power could actually benefit him.   
  
Now, though, the situation is different.   
  
Keiji makes sure to meet Colonel Washijou’s eyes before beginning his run-up. The man is watching him dismissively, but without malice. Unlike Hashimoto, the colonel simply has no patience for what he perceives as weakness.   
  
Months spent curtailing his power compare little to the years he has been honing it to a hair-trigger. He runs at the wall, but rather than attempt to leap and catch the top or swarm up the rope, when he reaches the wood simply steps against it. There’s no hesitation needed to stick his foot in place and press up with his leg. It takes a moment or two to coordinate himself enough that he has room to continue his ladder-like progress, but as soon as he finds a rhythm he moves swiftly and easily to the top, pushing up with every step and stabilising himself with his hands where needed.   
  
The feeling as he looks down from the top to behold astonished faces staring at him is indescribable. Two dozen people reassessing, recalculating his worth, and one among them seething with poorly disguised rage.  
  
It strikes Keiji that he has made an enemy out of his would-be bully. It’s curious to him, that this should happen before he ever makes a friend. Curious that Hashimoto should hate him _so_ much, resent him far more than he does even the others, who tease and mock the man far more than Keiji would ever dream of doing.  
  
Hashimoto, however, is as subtle as he is considerate, and wastes no time cornering Keiji as they head to the mess hall for lunch.   
  
“Listen you piece of shit,” he spits, fists tightly clenched. “Don’t think you’re winning any favours with that stunt you pulled. _I’m_ the stand-out soldier in this bunch of rejects. _I’m_ the one who was hand-picked by the Colonel, and I’m _damned_ if I’m gonna be upstaged by some skinny little kid who can’t even speak, just because he can walk up walls. I’ve got great stuff ahead of me _Akaashi_ , so don’t think you’re gonna steal my glory with this, you got it?”  
  
Keiji notes the distance between them. Notes the way Hashimoto stands: looming and leaning forward, but wary. He shrugs, knowing that to sign any kind of response would be pointless. There is no reasoning with someone who refuses to understand him so wilfully.  
  
“You think you’re so special?” Hashimoto says, taking a step back. “Just because you beat my little trick and made a scene? Well you’re _nothing_. You’re no one. The Colonel knows damn well what powers are worthwhile, and they’re _mine_ , you hear? So you just stay out of my way, before you get yourself in a situation you _can’t_ trick your way out of.”  
  
He spits on the ground at Keiji’s feet and storms away, not looking back.   
  
_Powers_ , Keiji thinks, surprised enough that all he can do is stare after the man. _He said ‘powers’, not just ‘power’. He must have more than one._  
  
Later, as he lies in his bed regarding the ceiling he has grown to know so well, the full irony of their enmity suddenly occurs to Keiji. It’s an odd feeling—unsettling and uncomfortable enough that he doesn’t question why it’s taken him so long to remember. In fact, now that the thought is lodged in his mind, he wishes he could forget it altogether.   
  
But the fact remains, hard and cold and hateful: Hashimoto is more wrong than he can ever know about the differences between them. For, had his life played out differently, Keiji would have grown up with two powers as well.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: I was literally two sentences away from feeling that I had finished this chapter over a week ago. Then I ended up at a convention before I _could_ finish and edit the chapter, and when I came back to it the whole thing ended up being a good 500 words longer than planned. Oops.
> 
> Incidentally, I do actually have a playlist for this story, which I've held back from sharing because it's under my main account name. Buuut I figure few enough peeps will actually click the link that it's okay for me to post it, so if you're interested in the mood music which accompanies Swansong you can have a listen [right here](https://open.spotify.com/user/tottwriter/playlist/1jEWXXJcUpYCSe1Ge5RgXK?si=6gzsB0cBQqSj5mY0c2O-uQ)!


	14. Chapter 14

Nakatanigi-mura isn’t all that great a place, particularly when compared with the city where Koutarou has spent most of his life. The village which the compound overlooks is small, nestled in a river valley, and a good couple of miles from the town where the military base is located _officially_. It makes a good location though, because soldiers need somewhere to do their training runs, and locals don’t really like listening to the noise of troops marching and test-firing weapons, and traditionally, farmers have been a lot less numerous and a lot more easy to win over, with subsidies helping to offset the disadvantages of having military neighbours.  
  
Their first week in the place, Kuroo had mentioned casually that ‘subsidies’ really means ‘bribes’ and Koutarou doesn’t doubt for a second that it’s true. Having _met_ some of the wealthier farmers, he’s surprised some of them still have grandmothers left to sell.  
  
It’s a pretty uncharitable thought perhaps, but Koutarou ran out of those back on week three when they caught wind that the most notorious of the local landowners was dealing in what was basically slave labour, exploiting tenant farmers and paying them in tokens—while holding mostly fictional debts over them so that they couldn’t leave. Koutarou had always thought the countryside couldn’t have anywhere near so many problems as a big city—especially with a big military base just on everyone’s doorstep—but the weeks are teaching him just how wrong he’s been this whole time.  
  
Country people are mean, and gossipy, and far more quick to judge outsiders than anyone in the city. Word gets out about his and Kuroo’s identities after a couple of weeks—something he reckons is the aftermath of catching the established soldiers’ hazing attempt in the act. Konoha is an alright guy, if sneakier than anyone has a right to be, but some of the others are pretty shifty.  
  
Whoever it was who actually leaked the information though, the result is the same: a spokesperson from the village gathers up a petition and makes such a fuss about it all that the base’s commanding officer has to issue a statement promising that Koutarou won’t be allowed off-site ‘without appropriate safeguarding measures’.  
  
He doesn’t like it. Doesn’t like how _hard_ it is to try and fit in, when he’s been looking forward to being closer to civilisation for so long already. They’re stuck here for a couple of years at least, halfway between the city life they miss and the true hinterlands further north. It’s gonna be unbearable if they have to put up with people making so much effort to hate them just because of some dumb rumours that aren’t even close to being true.  
  
“Nah, you’re both cool,” Konoha says when the topic comes up in the mess hall one evening. “We just don’t get a lot of people transferring in, you know? Most of us graduated together, and we’re set here for life, pretty much. Maybe we’ll get reassigned for a bit to the base over the other side of the mountains, but there’s not exactly a long list who’d actually _want_ to work in a dump like this.”  
  
“Wow, you’re really selling the place,” Kuroo remarks, resting his chin on the palm of one hand.  
  
Konoha snorts. “Bit late once you’re already here, eh? Sorry guys, you drew the short straw with this assignment. Close enough to the city that we hear the fireworks whenever they have a party, and far enough that we never get invited.”  
  
“Trust me, we’ve had worse,” Kuroo replies.  
  
“Yeah, he means it,” Koutarou adds, seeing the doubtful expression on Konoha’s face. “And aside from the whole repeating basic training thing, we didn’t even get the worst of it. Poor Tsukki’s so far out no one’s even heard from him since. He might has well have vanished.”  
  
“Slight exaggeration there,” Kuroo remarks, even as Konoha asks: “‘Tsukki’?”  
  
“Oh! Right. He was radio operator when we had our mission,” Koutarou says, grinning. “Honestly he was a bit of a dick sometimes, but he didn’t deserve what they did. He wasn’t even out in the field, you know? But Command just upped and reassigned him practically the next day, off to some random base I never even heard of.”  
  
“It’s not quite so desperate as Bokuto’s making out, mind,” Kuroo says, and there’s a warning in his expression as he speaks.  
  
Koutarou clamps his mouth shut. Shit, has he said too much? Is he going to get them in trouble?  
  
Kuroo shrugs at Konoha, and adds: “He sent word to us via a mutual friend a few months in. It’s a small base, but they watch over a research station or something and he’s finding the work okay. Apparently it’s ‘not what he was expecting, but a challenge all the same,’ or something like that. For all we know he might have put in the transfer request himself.”  
  
Koutarou knows that one is a lie; knows Tsukishima had complained bitterly about the assignment both at the time and in his letter—although it had been Kuroo and Kenma who had ‘decoded’ all their information out of the series of carefully neutral sentences Tsukishima had written them. But if Kuroo is playing it this way, he’s not about to make a fuss. Not _that_ kind of fuss at least:  
  
“Aw, you always gotta ruin the fun stories,” he whines, deliberately letting his shoulders droop and his face slip into a pout.  
  
Konoha snorts again, smirking at him. “Give it a few more months and even a plain old letter from home’s gonna seem like a fun story,” he drawls, rolling his shoulders. “Not like we get much action out here, you know? Not good action, anyway. Who’s gonna pull shit right on our doorstep? They all know we have a good half a unit of powered soldiers here, and Command like to keep it a secret what we can do, just so they stay in line a little more.”  
  
Kuroo stares at him, leaning half across Koutarou as he asks: “They don’t keep the locals informed about the powers of soldiers on-site”?  
  
“Why bother?” Konoha replies, shrugging. “The crime rate dropped by half overnight when the first unit moved here, and it pretty much vanished completely—save for the corruption, of course—when they rotated units and stopped offering a rundown of all the powers we have to the locals like they used to.”  
  
Koutarou has never been so good at keeping track of little details, or understanding them the way Kuroo has. He’s always been more concerned with straightforward issues like, say, stopping corrupt landlords from turning their tenants into _actual_ slave labour. But even he can see the problem with keeping a whole village—at _least_ , because there’s no telling how far the concern really spreads—afraid to move in case someone with a power could see them from the base. It’s been bad enough living that way for the last year because Kuroo has been wary of people sabotaging them. It’s just plain wrong to make normal people live like that the whole time.  
  
What he wants to do is shout about it. March up to the captain and demand to know what’s going on. March down to the _village_ and tell them who everyone is and what they can _do!_  
  
Years of training are what hold him back, but apparently even they aren’t enough to disguise the expression on his face.  
  
“Hey I never said I agreed with it all,” Konoha adds, raising his hands like he’s trying to calm him down. “I’m just a nobody same as you guys, you know? And I’d prefer not to get reassigned into oblivion if it’s okay with you both. We don’t all have your backbone. I’m just here to keep my head down and serve out my time.”  
  
“Your time?” Koutarou asks.  
  
Half a beat behind him Kuroo adds: “You some kind of felon doing community service then? No _wonder_ we found you in our room.”  
  
Konoha scowls at them both in turn. “Would you just let that _go_ already! It wasn’t even my idea. I can’t help what power I have, you know?”  
  
That makes perfect sense to Koutarou. Honestly, after that first night’s misunderstanding, Konoha’s turned out to be a pretty decent guy. He trusts him.  
  
And it’s not as though he doesn’t know _exactly_ how it feels to be judged for using a power you never actually asked for. He knows it all too well, frankly.  
  
Kuroo seems less convinced though, leaning forward with his serious face on, arms folded.  
  
“It’s still odd wording. Now, I’m not looking for trouble. I’m just tired of people latching onto us because of some PR fiasco which _we_ never asked to be part of. You can understand how it’s made me a little wary. Particularly when I’m being lied to.”  
  
“Hey, Kuroo, that’s not—”  
  
But Konoha sighs, hanging his head and shaking it a little. “Got me all figured out, have you?” he says, looking back up at them both. He’s still smiling, but it’s nothing like as cheerfully as he was before. “It’s really nothing as bad as you probably think. I was a kid, I was dumb and gullible, I let people talk me into doing stupid shit I shouldn’t have done, just because I could. And I got caught, and I did altogether too much community service, and that would have been that except when you have a criminal record, getting a job’s not all that easy any more. Joining the defence force would have wiped it out…if they’d have taken me. But they wouldn’t, so I went for the next best thing, which was this. It’s not great that they only let me in because of the power which _started_ the whole mess, no. But it sure as hell beats being unemployed, and getting a bunch of lowlifes constantly pestering me like I’m still some dumb kid who’ll actually believe them.”  
  
“Wow, that sucks,” Koutarou says, because it really does. “What are you gonna do when you leave?”  
  
Konoha’s grin returns as he shrugs. “Honestly I haven’t really thought that far ahead just yet. I’ve got a good few years before the mandatory period is up, and it’s gonna look better on my record if I stick around a while longer instead of bolting first chance I get. But I never really finished my exams—it’s kinda hard to study when you’re stuck doing community service all your spare minutes. I want to retake some of them. My parents are all for it, so I guess I’ll go home and stay with them while I sort it out. No sense planning after that until I get there.”  
  
Kuroo still doesn’t really look like he trusts him, but it’s not as though Koutarou can force him to, and he _definitely_ can’t ask what the whole problem is there, when the person in question is sat right opposite them.  
  
Sometimes Koutarou thinks that Kuroo is a pain in the ass, and it’s stuff like this which is why. He can never just take someone at face value! There’s always got to be something complicated, and it’s not as though he doesn’t have a pretty good reason to be that way, but it _really_ doesn’t help when they need to be making _friends_.  
  
It seems like Kuroo has got the hint though—even if Koutarou isn’t sure what kind of hint it actually was—because he shoots Koutarou a borderline apologetic glance as Konoha is talking, and doesn’t even try to ask what exactly it was that Konoha _did_ to get in so much trouble.  
  
Which is a little bit of a shame really, because Koutarou is definitely curious about that one. He squashes the thought flat, and does his best not to think about it as they finish their meal and head back to their rooms for the night. There’s nothing worse than people pestering you to know all about how you screwed up.  
  
He waits until he and Kuroo are in their room—secure and alone—before mentioning it, even though the question burns at him all the way along the corridors, only getting more unbearable after Konoha bids them goodnight as they pass his own room.  
  
“What did you go and interrogate him for?” Koutarou asks as soon as the door closes. “He’s an alright guy, you know? I felt like a real jerk sitting there while you didn’t believe him.”  
  
Kuroo sits down on his bunk. “He was _lying_. I could tell. Kenma showed me how to years ago. It’s something he picked up by watching people when he heard them contradicting themselves.”  
  
“Yeah but he had a good reason! No one wants to admit that stuff!”  
  
Kuroo rolls his eyes. “Okay, sure. But we weren’t to know that until we asked. You gotta think long term, you know? Someone at Command wants us stuck out here forever, and we just don’t know how far the rot goes. We can’t trust _anyone_ until they prove themselves, not if we want to get our lives back.”  
  
Koutarou stares at his friend. It’s… Kuroo’s right, he knows that. Kuroo and Kenma are both smart—the kind of smart which shows up in books and tests, and which has never quite been Koutarou’s strong point. But Kuroo is also pretty dumb sometimes, and it feels like this is one of those moments.  
  
“You know,” he says, folding his arms and relishing only a _little_ bit that with Kuroo sitting down, he can actually loom over him for once, “All you’re gonna do being so suspicious of everyone is make more people hate you. You gotta take a chance on people sometimes! Kenma said he was working on it, right? If you’re really that worried you should just get him to come check everyone out on his next day off or something.”  
  
Kuroo stares at him, agape. “I…”  
  
“Oho!” Koutarou hoots, leaning forward and grinning. “What’s this? Looks like I outsmarted you this time! Admit it, I’m just too brilliant, aren’t I?”  
  
It’s halfway a joke, sure. Kuroo’s usually the one with the good plans, and they both pretty much know that. It’s been drilled into Koutarou over and over that his strength is his _strength_ , not his brainpower. But Kuroo just grins, and not one of those scheme-y smirks which he usually trots out when he’s trying to one-up someone or prove himself better than them. No, it’s a real smile, small and gentle and a little bit bashful, the ones Koutarou has always liked best, if he’s completely honest. How could anyone _not_ like that smile?  
  
“Yeah, you’re pretty good,” Kuroo says ruefully, nodding up at him.  
  
Koutarou _beams_.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a lot to say this time, sadly. I've had a really busy summer with my kids at home, but they're back in school now so hopefully I can claw back my fortnightly update schedule at _some_ point. 
> 
> I hadn't originally planned for Konoha to feature all that much in the story, but dammit if he isn't too cool to leave out. 
> 
> Update: Following the Great Tumblr Purge of '18, my blog there is no more. If you want to holler at me I can now be found on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/OlynnaWrites). Please only request access if you are over 18!


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It liiiiives!
> 
> Let's just pretend the last few months didn't happen, yeah? I've wanted to work on this fic for _so long_ but other obligations have taken over up until now. I'm so excited to have been writing it again!

Nakatanigi-mura is torment. Pure, absolute torment. They’re _laughing_ at them—at _him_ —taunting him with this ‘near but so far’ bullshit. Reminding him, day on day, week on week, just how much power they have over him, despite the fact that half the board don’t even have _actual_ powers at all.  
  
_There’s something in that,_ he thinks, mentally filing the concept away for later. Mistrust of the new generation perhaps, or the way the world is running away without them?  
  
It’s probably paranoia. It’s _absolutely_ paranoia, but Tetsurou doesn’t particularly mind admitting as much. There’s no harm in indulging this line of thinking all the while he has nothing better to do. It’s not as though there’s anything at the base to particularly challenge him, and what’s the worst that could happen? Either it’s the baseless paranoia it logically ought to be—in which case he’s not actually hurting anyone, it’s just a thought exercise—or he’s right, in which case he’s at least _prepared_ for the next round of bullshit being set up for them to face.  
  
Besides, the only thing he still can’t figure out is _why._ Why bother? Why go to all this trouble to discredit, shame, and effectively silence them when there’s literally nothing to gain? It’s not even as though the negative publicity has had any repercussions for regular people with powers—a solid third of the population had them _anyway_ at the last official count, and the proportion has probably only gone up since then. It’s increased slowly but steadily ever since the first documentation of them. There’s no reason to suppose that’s going to change now.  
  
And yet here they are. Even _Kenma_ can’t seem to work out what’s going on with their extended disgrace, despite visiting the base twice on short notice to scope out any plants. It’s all just the usual gossip and low-level corruption which Tetsurou has come to expect from the locals: the farmers skim a little off the top of their profits and slide it the way of the most senior officers, and those officers don’t look _too_ closely at what’s going on when their backs are turned, or pay much notice to the paperwork which lands on their desks. Not unless it’s particularly hard to ignore. The system is wrong—it’s broken—but that’s not anything new, and it’s got nothing to do with them.

 

* * *

  
  
“We’re missing something,” Kenma says on their first visit back home, frowning the way he always does when he can’t find a smooth path to victory. “I can’t make any progress. If you want regular proof of corruption it’s right there, but nothing which ties it to what they did to you. The closest Fukunaga’s gotten is them mentioning some sort of ‘asset’ they got hold of around that time—which _maybe_ could have been in the stronghold, but they never say what the asset is or where it’s stored, or even if they want to use it.”  
  
“Maybe that’s just a backup plan?” Bokuto suggests, shrugging in his usual lighthearted way. “We went all over that building and there was nothing in it when we left except the drugs, so unless _that’s_ their asset it must be something else. I mean, that’s what these people do, right? They have all those extra plans just in case the first ones don’t work. Doesn’t mean it’s anything to do with _us._ I reckon we just need to worry about clearing our names, and everything else will sort itself out anyway.”  
  
“You’re missing the point,” Tetsurou says, intervening before the pulsing vein in Kenma’s head actually bursts. Even after all these years, Kenma still gets exhausted by Bokuto’s rather oblique way of looking at things sometimes. “We _can’t_ clear our names unless we prove that whatever shady nonsense they’re up to was the reason someone tipped the public off about the mansion bust. Otherwise…Kenma can probably take them down in the end, sure. But it still leaves us on assignment out in the middle of nowhere, set to guarding rice fields and settling petty disputes with farmers for the rest of our careers.”  
  
He doesn’t add the sudden realisation Bokuto’s words give him, even though he can see it echoed in Kenma’s eyes, both of them coming to the same conclusion at the same time. There’s no point saying it aloud—the only thing it would do is depress Bokuto even more.  
  
All the same, it’s a chilling thought. He’s half mad he hadn’t thought of it sooner—he’s been chasing himself round in circles for months, and Bokuto just lands right on it by accident. They’re _not_ important, most likely. Nothing about their exile has to make sense as part of one overarching plan. Skilled as they are, there are other soldiers with powers—more and more of them, popping up all the time. When it comes right down to bare facts, the most likely situation is that they _are_ one of those ‘backup plans’. Primed and ready to be sacrificed to the media at any point when a scandal is needed.  
  
It’s not a comforting thought, but it doesn’t stop it being the likely reality they’re faced with. And it makes returning to Nakatanigi-mura at the end of their short leave a whole new level of torment which not even Konoha’s lurid jokes about their ‘weekend honeymoon’ can distract him from.  
  
He scarcely even hears the disgruntled: “Man, what’s his problem?”, or Bokuto’s slightly tactless reply that he just misses Kenma. He’d thought the low of his life was being taken out for his promise, but it turns out that what hurts more is the thought that he really is just that expendable, after all.

 

* * *

  
  
The days slip by. Weeks too, most likely, but Tetsurou isn’t really keeping track. There’s a monotony to Nakatanigi-mura which it’s hard to escape, and the summer is too hot—the days too long—for anything particularly noteworthy to take place and break it up. The farmers just tend their fields, and the soldiers just march on through the heat, lining up gratefully for lukewarm showers at the end of each day before they collapse into their beds.  
  
“Yeah, summer’s the worst out here,” Konoha remarks one evening in the mess hall. “Unless you’re fucking _Miya_ of course, charging people to let them sit near him so he can keep them cool. He makes more money in a week off of people on-base during summer than we take home in a whole month. Don’t buy into it, is my advice. Just sit and melt and keep your pride and your wallet intact.”  
  
Bokuto stares across the room at the icicle in question immediately, expression brightening. “Man, that’s so c—”  
  
“Don’t even _think_ about finishing that sentence,” Tetsurou snaps, thumping him on the shoulder hard enough that his hand stings. It might as well have been the brush of a tissue for all Bokuto actually must feel, but he stops all the same, sinking back down as Konoha laughs at his misfortune.  
  
“Man, you lost all your sense of fun lately,” Bokuto grumbles, hunching over the table. “What’s got into you?”  
  
_I don’t see a way out of the mess you somehow got us into,_ Tetsurou can’t help but think, even though he knows he shouldn’t. He tries to keep the bitterness out of his voice as he smiles and says aloud: “Well the heat, for starters. Who knew they’d never heard of air conditioning in the country.”  
  
Konoha snorts. “I just told you, they shipped in Miya instead,” he says. “Who needs to pay for air conditioning when you can just dump one asshole with ice powers into a base and let everyone fight over him instead. I heard he gives a cut of the profits to the captain, too, just to make sure his happy little scheme keeps going without interference.”  
  
Tetsurou grins at the audacity of it all and Bokuto dutifully laughs beside him, but there’s something in his expression as he glances Tetsurou’s way which seems off. It’s a tiny difference, not something most people would pick up on perhaps, but most people haven’t know Bokuto since he was an immeasurably strong thirteen-year-old with way too little impulse control. He’s learnt to reign in his emotions since then, but Tetsurou’s had just as much time to learn all his tells. At some point soon he’s going to have to come clean about that awful, awful voice inside his mind—the treacherous thoughts which can’t help blaming one of the two people he cares about most for ruining his entire life.  
  
The worst part of it all is the fact he strongly suspects that deep down, Bokuto feels exactly the same.

 

* * *

  
  
If there’s one thing about the countryside which Tetsurou _can_ admire, it’s the spectacular show nature puts on for them when autumn rolls around. He’d always thought the city was pretty enough—it’s not as though there was a shortage of parks or gilded trees to look at on his way to and fro—but the valleys and mountains look almost unreal, decked in red and yellow and a thousand shades between the two.  
  
The work steps up, too. Not by much, but as the summer heat wanes and the nights edge in a little, what Konoha refers to as ‘the usual chancers’ begin to ply their trades once more.  
  
It’s surprising, really, just how rife with criminal activity a seemingly quiet rural district can be, but from farmers not declaring animal sales to the attempted trafficking of kids with newly developed powers, the base finds itself being called upon pretty regularly to settle disputes and lay down the law across the district. With the local police force having been absorbed into the organisation and long since dispersed, there’s no one else for the locals to turn to, no matter the severity or insignificance of their problems.  
  
Apparently someone somewhere has noticed the increased demand on their time though, because roughly six months after their arrival a new barracks block goes up—practically overnight, thanks to a contingent of powered construction workers shipped in for the purpose—and they’re informed that the base will be taking on additional peacekeepers.  
  
The news is both good and bad, so far as Tetsurou can tell. Having more personnel means less work for everyone on an individual level, but it also means the locals will have an even _larger_ military presence on their doorstep, where once they would have been governed by local police alone. The tone of the law enforcement is changing rapidly, and based on letters from Kenma that’s not something unique to Nakatanigi-mura.  
  
It’s troubling— _extremely_ troubling—and Tetsurou lies awake the night after reading Kenma’s letter, feeling utterly powerless. He’d put his abilities to work as a soldier because he’d dreamed of doing good as a child. The first unit of powered soldiers had been like…like _superheroes_. It had been something of a dream of his to follow in their footsteps. Instead, he’s got a backseat view of growing corruption and heavy-handed deployment of powers against innocent and relatively helpless civilians, and there’s nothing he can _do_.  
  
He fully expects the problem to consume him for weeks, and to have to dig up more reassurances to keep Bokuto from spiralling into a pit of similar but potentially more dangerous frustration. Then the new recruits actually _arrive_.

 

* * *

  
  
_This is a joke,_ he thinks, seeing the last face he ever expected to see again among the new unit to be stationed with them. _This is some kind of sick, sick joke._  
  
Beside him, Bokuto is gaping, and even Konoha seems to have caught wind that something’s up, because as the group disappear into the  new barracks to stow their things he nudges Tetsurou and asks:  
  
“You two alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”  
  
Tetsurou grimaces.  
  
“Yeah, something like that.”

 

* * *

  
  
The rumours start almost immediately, which is not surprising because Tetsurou might know practically nothing about the guy, but what he does know is the stuff which can’t really be concealed:  
  
“Did you see the really skinny guy? Apparently he can’t even _talk_.”  
  
“I heard someone say one of the recruits failed basic training the first time, and only got through the second because he conned the officers.”  
  
“There’s a new guy who’s using _sign language._ What’s the point in having him here if he needs a translator?”  
  
He’s torn on whether or not to say something, and he can see the same dilemma playing out across Bokuto’s face as the soldiers gather in the mess hall that evening. The new unit are still out on their tour, and in their absence the hall _seethes_ with gossip that rapidly seems to latch onto the idea that they’ll end up glorified babysitters.  
  
The chatter comes to an abrupt halt when the man in question appears among the group of newcomers at the door. It’s _eerie_ , the way the new men file across the room. They’re halted before they reach the trays, by the same set of assholes who’d set Konoha to hazing for them.  
  
“Man, they’re not even letting them eat before they start?” Konoha remarks, apparently thinking along the same lines. He shakes his head. “That’s cold.”  
  
“What are they gonna do?” Bokuto asks, sounding worried. “They—do you know who that is?”  
  
Tetsurou kicks him into silence and shakes his head, but he gets no further because at that moment a short man with brown hair steps up beside the mute and folds his arms, grinning at the group of hazers.  
  
“Alright, we’re getting right to it are we?” he asks cheerfully. “I’ll head you off then. I’m Komi, this here’s Akaashi, and yep, he speaks sign. As you can see, he’s doing it right now, and while I reckon you ought to learn, I’ll translate for the time being. He says he’s not going anywhere, not putting up with nonsense either, and anyone who has a problem with that can fight him.”  
  
There’s a brief silence. He’s pretty sure everyone in the hall could have heard a pin drop. Then Akaashi—Bokuto will be glad to finally have a name to put to his face, Tetsurou thinks—makes an odd clicking sound with his mouth and signs something, glaring at Komi as he does so.  
  
“Oh, my mistake,” Komi says, turning away with a nod. “He actually says you’re welcome to _try._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe it's taken so many chapters to reach this scene. I'm so glad we're finally here!


End file.
